Welcome to That Weewoo Show: a podcast where Ellen, Bex, and Alice watch and discuss every episode of ABC’s TV show, 9-1-1.
In this episode we discuss the sixth episode of 9-1-1, titled “Heartbreaker”.
On Valentine’s Day, a surprise marriage proposal goes awry; Athena attempts to help a desperate woman.
Mentioned in episode:
- Tiktok showing a first responder in 9-1-1 scenes: https://www.tiktok.com/@firedepartmentchronicles/video/6967080016429518086?_r=1&_t=8mCcNi6X7km
Content warnings for episode 1.06:
A small airplane in an air emergency, a choking incident, amateur surgical procedure with blood shown, off screen homicide, and a police officer at threat.
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Episode Transcript
Ellen: [00:00:00] Welcome back to That WeeWoo Show, a podcast where we watch and discuss episodes of the ABC show, 9-1-1. I’m Ellen.
Alice: I’m Alice.
Bex: And I’m Bex.
Ellen: Thanks for listening to our first few episodes and for sharing our social media posts. And also thanks to all the people who’ve rated us on Spotify and Apple podcasts and other places around where you’ve been listening.
We really appreciate you listening. This week we got some great messages on Twitter. Thank you very much to Nell, who is @nelsonsmyname, who replied to our tweets about the previous episode where we mentioned our little chat about Target and the differences between Australian and [00:01:00] US Target.
And they replied and told us all about all the different types of Target in the US and in Minnesota in particular. So thank you for that. We’ve all been educated.
Bex: Who knew super Target was a thing.
Alice: Yeah. Our minds are blown.
Ellen: We do have different sizes of, of shops from, you know, in different places. But. I think they have a, like, a whole lot more variety over there, which is pretty amazing. So, yeah.
Alice: Yeah. Like, we have Kmart over here instead of Target, and you go into the Kmart, like, near my house and the Kmart, you know, an hour away, and they all look exactly the same pretty much.
Bex: There’s no super Kmart.
Ellen: No, that’s right. Although sometimes the Country Target and that look a bit different.
Bex: No, they’ve, they’ve eliminated Country Target. That doesn’t exist anymore.
Ellen: Really?
Alice: They murdered Country Target. Yeah.
Ellen: Okay. I’m not sure if they have in Queensland. I think they’re still around.
Bex: Why am I not surprised that Queensland’s still around. [00:02:00]
Ellen: I mean, we’re all a bit backwards up here, you know. Anyway (laughs) if, if at any stage, we start talking about how different the American stuff is from Australian stuff, then please feel free to educate us in any way you’d like to get in touch.
Yeah, we love it. We love hearing about it. So thank you Nell.
Okay. So in this episode, we’re going to discuss episode six in season one, which is titled “Heartbreaker”, which aired on February 7th, 2018. Even though this is a Valentine’s day episode, it didn’t actually air on Valentine’s day.
It was the week before. But before we get into that, Alice, did you want to tell us what happened in the last episode?
Alice: Last week on 9-1-1, Abby and Buck met face to face to find Abby’s mom and saved a life in the process. Hen visited her ex girlfriend in prison, and we learnt finally about Bobby’s past and the death of his family in an apartment fire he started.
Bit of a heavy one last week.
Bex: [00:03:00] So the official summary for episode six says, on Valentine’s Day, a surprise marriage proposal goes awry with dangerous consequences. Athena attempts to help a desperate woman and unintentionally joins the Lonely Hearts Club. Bobby and Chimney pull holiday duty and learn about the Casanova fracture. And Abby and Buck go on their first official date.
And before we get into the discussion, let’s just flag some of the subject matter that we’re going to be discussing in case any of it is something that you don’t want to hear about. We’re going to be talking about a small airplane in an air emergency.
We’re going to be discussing a choking incident and not the fun kind of choking. There is going to be an amateur surgical procedure with blood shown. There is going to be an off screen homicide, and there will be a police officer at threat. [00:04:00] Doesn’t sound incredibly romantic for a Valentine’s Day episode.
Ellen: No, not so far. But it’s about to be really romantic.
Bex: Well, we open with Frank Sinatra, and Frank Sinatra’s always really romantic. We’ve got old blue eyes crooning fly me to the moon as we get aerial shots of Los Angeles and a small Cessna flies into view.
Ellen: That’s right. And I felt like this plane, it’s like flying in and out between buildings.
I’m like, are these, how low is this plane flying? Like, I don’t know if you’re allowed to fly close to the Los Angeles CBD kind of thing, like right next to the Hollywood sign.
Bex: Yeah, he does seem to be getting very low, but they, we do, we get beautiful shots of Hollywood Hills and the Hollywood sign. They, they fly past Griffith Park Observatory, which I went, “Ooh, that was from La La Land. I recognize that.”
Alice: [00:05:00] Oh, see, I’m the opposite. I recognize it from Grand Theft Auto. We are not the same person. (laughs)
Ellen: I actually recognized it because that is the direction that we flew in from when I was flying into LA when I was over there last year. So, but anyway they’re, they’re flying along and the man says he’s going to swing them back around so they can go back.
And the engine suddenly cuts out a little bit and the plane shudders and the man says, “Crap.” And I’m like, “We just had a plane crash in the last episode. Like, are we good? Are we doing this again? What is going on here? It’s a bit soon.” But then the, the girl starts to panic and the man tells her to, “there’s like a binder under your seat, like grab that and turn to the end and read out what the instructions are.”
Bex: I’ll just flag here this guy’s only had his [00:06:00] pilot’s license for a month. So his co pilot, who is his girlfriend, Kate, has legitimate reason to be freaking out right now. But she’s, she’s a pretty good sport. She starts to read out the checklist so that he can go through and make sure that everything on the plane is… he’s doing all the things that he needs to in order to go into an emergency landing.
But even as, even as she’s reading out everything and he’s calling off check, he’s not doing anything. He’s not, he’s not flicking buttons. He’s not checking dials. His hands are on the wheel. He’s just saying “check” as she reads out. And this is important.
Alice: Oh, it’s so corny.
Ellen: Well, as soon as I figured out what he was doing, I was just like, this asshole.
Bex: Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to slap him.
Ellen: It’s like “Initiate engagement process.”
Alice: “Check.”
Bex: “Confirm pilot is head over heels in love with the passenger.” [00:07:00] And then the engine kicks back in and the plane levels and the alarm stops and the final line item on the checklist was, will the pilot promise to love and cherish the passenger up until his dying day?
And this guy just says, “Double check.”
Ellen: And she’s just like, “What the fuck, man?”
Alice: She’s freaking the fuck out. Like, Oh my God.
Ellen: But when, when he says he loves her and she just goes, “I hate you!”
Bex: And he is so proud of himself. He’s reaching into his pocket, pulls out a ring, asks her to be his co pilot and she clutches at her chest, starts hyperventilating and he realizes that he has really fucked up.
Ellen: But anyway, we cut to the 9-1-1 call and Abby answers. And he’s actually called 9-1-1 from the plane.
[00:08:00] And he says that, you know, she’s passed out, but she’s breathing, but her heart is racing. And Abby’s like, “Oh, where are you? The ambulance is on the way.” And he’s like, “we’re in a Cessna flying over the LA.”
Bex: We’re still with Abby. She’s kind of looking like a what you’re in an airplane. She’s trying to get more details about what has happened and the guy’s saying “no nothing happened. She just passed out. I had nothing to do with this whatsoever.”
But then he kind of fesses up and tells Abby that he pretended there was something wrong with the plane because he was going to propose and he had the proposal written out in the emergency instructions. Abby is so done with his shit and just tells him to get on the ground. Asked if he’s contacted air traffic control.
They’ve said he said yes. Air traffic control gave them permission to touch down Burbank airport. But that’s 15 minutes away. And Abby says, just, can you get it down? Where can you make an emergency landing? [00:09:00] And apparently the closest place he can make an emergency landing is the middle of a golf course.
So we get this wonderful shot of the Cessna sort of coming in for landing on a green somewhere. And all of the, the people who were just going about their game.
Ellen: Diving out of the way,
Alice: Full on diving out of the way.
Ellen: And he screeches to a halt kind of thing.
Bex: As the 118 pull up. Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Which, perfect timing, how did they know which hole he was going to land on?
Alice: Magic.
Bex: Magic.
Ellen: Well, I assume they’d been watching him coming in.
Bex: Okay, that makes sense.
Ellen: Like, I don’t know, golf courses tend to have a lot of sort of trees and gardens around, like it can’t be that easy to drive a firetruck through the middle of a golf course, but anyway.
Bex: The groundskeeper’s just watching the engine truck come through going, “Oh no! Not the perfect turf!” [00:10:00] Anyway, the Cessna touches down, they get Kate out of the plane, lay her on the grass under the plane, and the 118s start to work on her. We’ve got Bobby, Buck, Hen, and a random member of the 118 to replace Chim, who is not back in into work yet, after brain surgery a couple of episodes ago.
Ellen: You know, I didn’t even notice that there was an extra person there. That’s terrible.
Alice: (laughs) The poor rest of the 118. Like, this is, it’s just a theme with the rest of the 118.
Ellen: We say this every time, yeah.
Bex: I mean I guess the logic is that they can’t really give them too much screen time because then they have to pay the guy their SAG awards and if they just have sort of the back of his head and he doesn’t say anything they can just pay him as a background actor even though he’s quite clearly in the entire scene.
Ellen: Yeah. He doesn’t say anything.
Bex: In universe it just, it’s just so sad that this guy is not even acknowledged.
Alice: [00:11:00] Yeah, not part of the cool kids. So Hen takes his blood, takes her blood pressure and reports that it’s 80 over 40 and dropping. And Buck, hey. Has been a firefighter for like six months at this point is not an EMT goes “looks like a possible heart attack.” Like I just gotta say when they thought that like because I had chest pains a couple years ago, and I was taken by the ambulance into the hospital I had like five blood tests and was under observation for ages just to make sure that it wasn’t but no Buck can just… yeah He’s just like it’s just a possible heart attack.
We’re good.
Bex: There is a first responder on TikTok. I will repost a couple of some of his videos. Who has a series where he green screens himself into Police, fire, medical shows, and kind of reacts as a real first responder would react to these situations. This scene is one that he did and he tore them to shreds.
[00:12:00] So I will repost this video so you can just see how badly this show did in this particular scene from a medical perspective.
Alice: My favorite part, because I rewatched it while I was watching the episode. He’s like, “okay, you guys can’t possibly get any more unprofessional.” And then Buck just pulls out his phone, like, and answers it while he’s on a call.
And he’s just like, “Oh, Hey Abby, I’m on a call. What’s up?” (laughs)
Bex: So, so that’s actually a good place. We’re going to jump back into the episode. Abby has called because she’s using her personal phone to call Buck’s personal phone to pass on medical information because apparently she has called Kate’s doctor and got her personal medical…
Ellen: Who’s told…
Bex: Yeah, who has told Abby what medication she was on. So she is then,
Alice: Abby’s not a doctor. She’s not, she’s a dispatch worker. Like, why? (laughs)
Ellen: [00:13:00] And the doctor’s just handing out medical information?
Bex: Yeah. Is this a HIPAA violation?
Alice: I think this is definitely a HIPAA violation. Not only that, but like Abby has a radio that she could like, a phone that she can go straight to Buck’s radio, but no, no, just like call his cell. It’s fine.
Bex: Anyway. So this this is incredibly important because after Buck has magically diagnosed Kate with a heart attack, Hen wants to administer a specific medication and it is contraindicated for the medication that she is on. It would do very bad things if Hen were to administer it.
So it’s a good thing that Abby did call, but yeah, incredibly unprofessional the way she did it.
Alice: Yeah. So Abby, like tells… mentions that the, the stunt that the guy pulled and Buck’s like, well, “what stunt?” [00:14:00] And she’s like, “Oh, he didn’t tell you, Romeo faked an air emergency.” And Buck is like, “you faked an emergency?”
Bex: And the guy’s just all, what? “I was proposing!”
Ellen: I love how everyone, everyone’s reaction to this is just like, “You did what?”
Alice: Yeah. Like, what, what were you thinking?
Bex: Yeah, this is, this is one idea that you need to run past the committee before you actually put it into action
So, after hearing about Kate’s medical history, which you definitely should not have been told, Bobby then gets in on the magical diagnosis game and diagnoses her with Broken Heart Syndrome.
Ellen: Yeah, which means they definitely can’t give her Whatever they were about to put in her.
Bex: They were going to give her nitroglycerin.
Alice: Yeah. Again, I was just given aspirin, but sure.
Ellen: [00:15:00] Yeah. Broken heart syndrome. The man asked if it’s a real thing and Bobby says that it’s just like having a heart attack, but probably brought on by her medication and him nearly scaring her half to death.
Bex: So Hen administers the correct medication and Kate wakes up like she’s been woken up from a dream. She’s like, she jolts upright and she gasps. And I’m not entirely sure what the drug was that Hen gave her, but I’m not entirely sure that that’s how you would react.
Alice: Look, the actress is really getting… flexing her chops here.
Ellen: Probably would have been a little more groggy,
Bex: Anyway, so she jolts upright, everyone is relieved and the first thing that she asks is to see the ring again. And Abby is still on the phone, by the way, Buck has not hung up the call.
Alice: [00:16:00] And he’s given running commentary.
Bex: He’s telling, he’s letting her know what’s going on. So the guy pulls out the ring again, he slides it onto Kate’s finger, she looks at it, she tearfully says yes, which then Buck passes on.
He’s like, “I think she’s actually considering his proposal.” And then she slaps him. And the comment was “she said yes. And then she smacked him” and Abby’s like, “yes, love hurts.”
Ellen: And then we get to the title card.
Bex: Yeah. So I think, I think that’s going to be the theme of this episode. Love hurts.
Alice: Well, it is called “Heartbreaker.”
Ellen: All right, so after the title card we go straight to Abby’s place. Didn’t want to say anything else about that dubious medical episode that we just had right before we move on?
Bex: No, I think I think the less said about that the better.
Ellen: [00:17:00] Yeah, I think this episode, so like out of all the episodes we’ve had so far, we’ve had some very kind of I guess intense and deep episodes that have been, you know traumatic, I suppose, for want of a better word, but this one has definite comedy overtones.
Like I have to say a lot of the scenes in this particular episode seem to be very tongue in cheek and I’m not sure if they’re actually going for… you know, it’s, it’s almost like I guess in Supernatural we have, like, I don’t know, I keep bringing it up, but we all do, we all share this in common. We, we have, like, the serious parts of the episode, but then we also have the, the lighter comedy parts.
But because I, I guess we have only had a few episodes of this one so far, I’m not quite sure of the tone yet for this. Like, it, sometimes they seem to be, like, taking the piss, you know, of, of, like, situations.
Bex: But the interesting thing is, [00:18:00] like, with Supernatural, you would have your light hearted episode and the entire episode would be tongue in cheek, whereas for 9-1-1, you’ll get your tongue in cheek scenes and then they’ll get something that is absolutely horrific, and then you’ll come back to something tongue in cheek, and then you’ll traumatize somebody, and then you’ll go back to something tongue in cheek.
Alice: Oh, the absolute whiplash.
Ellen: Yeah, I’m not, I don’t know, we’re, sort of six episodes in and I’m really not quite sure of the tone yet. I mean, I’m okay with the whiplash so far. But anyway…
So we’re back to some, some more lighthearted kind of scene now where Carla and Patricia are baking some cookies in the kitchen while Abby is sitting at the counter painting her nails and Patricia is mostly remembering how to do it.
Although. Carla has to, has to sort of help her out a little bit. And Abby sort of reminds her that the tablespoon is the big one, and Carla sort of looks at her and goes, “Let her remember.”
Bex: [00:19:00] Which Abby finds hilarious. Because apparently her her father always did the cooking. So there’s nothing for Patricia to remember, which Patricia very indignantly says that she made good reservations.
You go, Patricia. But they’re making Valentine’s Day cookies because this is the first sort of in episode mention of the fact that it is Valentine’s Day, or it’s coming up to Valentine’s Day and Abby loves Valentine’s Day. So it’s the one day of the year that she can be sappy and romantic and in love with love.
And then she gets shot down by Carla.
Alice: I love Carla so much. She’s like, “So why are you dating a guy who only likes to bone on the phone?”
Bex: It only occurred to me later that that meant that Abby has told Carla that they are actually having phone sex now.
Ellen: [00:20:00] Yeah, I thought that too. I’m like, wow, you’re just telling her, like, how long have you known this woman?
And you’re just like, yeah, we just bone on the phone.
Bex: I think Carla has been upgraded to like, bestie.
Alice: Carla’s part of the family now. Yes.
Ellen: Abby says that she and Buck aren’t dating. Although he does, he has invited her to a party at the firehouse.
Bex: Ooh, party!
Alice: It’s so high school.
Ellen: It is a bit high school.
She says it’s getting kind of irritating though because she’s fine with him just being a boy toy but he’s so afraid he’s going to do something wrong or hurt her and she just wants to put on some fancy underwear and go out and have a nice time.
Alice: It must be nice like being able to talk about, well, not nice because obviously it’s a terrible thing, but she can just talk about this in front of her mum and know that her mum’s not going to remember anyway.
Ellen: Oh, yeah.
Bex: I don’t know, Patricia seems pretty supportive. [00:21:00] In, she has moments where she seems supportive. Although, when Abby suggests that if Buck doesn’t come through, the three of them should have a girls’ night Patricia seems to side with Carla when Carla says that she deserves a Valentine’s day. And if Buck doesn’t give it to her, then “sayonara, fireboy.” And they high five.
So that’s Abby’s thoughts on Valentine’s day. And we cut to Buck’s perspective on Valentine’s day. Which is slightly, slightly more cynical than Abby’s.
Alice: It’s very typical mid-twenties boy.
Bex: Yeah. “Valentine’s day is just a commercial conspiracy. It’s a fake holiday designed by women to make guys feel guilty and get into debt.”
[00:22:00] And I love that the accident, the scene that they’ve rolled up to is a florist’s truck, which was delivering Valentine’s Day flowers, has crashed and there are roses strewn all over the road.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: And he’s complaining to Bobby about all this but surprisingly, Bobby does not share his opinion about Valentine’s Day.
Alice: Bobby’s really cute in this scene. Like, he’s definitely opening up more since the last couple episodes, which is really nice to see. He’s not doing the whole, like, strong, stoic, like, you know.
Ellen: Yeah, that’s true. And he’s obviously told Buck about you know, his family by now, because after he met his wife, it was pretty great to have someone to share it with.
Alice: yeah, he said he has loved it since he was eight years old, which is super cute.
Ellen: Yeah, that is cute. But he’s a romantic at heart, turns out. And Buck says, “You must miss your wife on Valentine’s day.” And Bobby just says, “I miss her every day. Buck.” He really did open up to them.
Alice: Yeah. It’s so nice. It’s definitely a turning point here.
Ellen: [00:23:00] It’s actually a really lovely shot too because they’re, it’s sort of, you know, late afternoon and the, the sun is kind of shining in, but they’re really wet because this florist truck has run into like a fire hydrant and there’s like water gushing everywhere.
So they’re all like standing in this glistening sunlight, you know, it’s a really gorgeously shot.
Bex: Water dropping around them. Yeah. It’s a beautiful scene.
Alice: It’s like the classic, like, romantic in the rain thing, but it’s Bobby and Buck.
Ellen: But no, now it is time to go to the party at the firehouse.
Alice: I love this cake so much.
Bex: The cake is amazing. All we can see when we cut to the scene is the white base with the, like, the buttercream decoration. And there are little matchbox cars, which… The first couple of times I watched this, I didn’t notice it, [00:24:00] but one of the cars is a blue sports car, the other one is a yellow pickup truck, and the sports car is, like wedged up on top of the hood of the, the pickup truck.
So they’re using the Matchbox cars to recreate Chimney’s accident, and around the corner of the cake there’s a little, like, Matchbox fire truck coming towards them.
Ellen: Oh my god…
Bex: And then you, you pan up. And on top of the white fondant base, a white buttercream base is what I’m assuming is a fondant bust of Chimney’s head with rebar sticking through the forehead.
Alice: Like right through, like at the front and then it comes out the back as well. It’s, and there’s a candle on top of his head as well.
Bex: Yeah, the candle on top of his head is just a piece de resistance. Oh my God.
Alice: Like, do you reckon Bobby baked this?
Bex: You know what? I think Bobby, Bobby is a cook. He’s not a baker.
[00:25:00] I don’t, I like, I see him, you know, making lasagnas and making incredible casseroles. I don’t see him manipulating fondant with that level of, that level of care. So no, I think they got, I think they ordered that in.
Ellen: Oh Lord. If that had been me in the accident and someone made a cake out of the accident, I would have been like, okay, thank you. I’m gone. I can’t deal with this right now. Oh my God.
Bex: So this, this is Chim’s welcome back party. There are banners hanging behind their heads. That say welcome back. The table is full of food and Bobby very proudly delivers the cake to Chim, who is kind of torn between I don’t know, he looks slightly amused, but slightly horrified, but he thanks everybody and when Buck asks how it feels to be back, Chim says, well, it beats the alternative.
Ellen: [00:26:00] And
well, We forgot to mention that the music needle drop here is “Lust for Life” by Iggy Pop. Yeah, he’s, he’s recovered remarkably well. I don’t know how long after the accident this is supposed to be, but he looks fine considering he has a traumatic brain injury.
Bex: He still has a scar on or a red mark on his forehead.
So like props to Continuity and Makeup for giving him that. But yeah, he’s, he has all his hair. So either, so it’s been long enough for him to grow his hair all the way back, or maybe they just forgot about the, oh shit, they would have shaved him to do the craniotomy. He should either be completely shaven or have like a bald patch on one side.
Alice: Yeah, I think they just didn’t want to shave him,
but yeah, I do like that he actually has the scar. Yeah. On his head. Because that’s nice.
Ellen: [00:27:00] They actually sliced his head open, so like, would he have not have scars where there’s no hair? Like, you know, I don’t know anyone who’s had this kind of surgery, but I got the impression that would
Bex: There would be scars they’d be under the hair, but like, his hair is lush and coiffed and very, very long for someone who’s had it all shaved.
Ellen: So we, I guess we have to assume that a few months have passed since that, so. Since it all happened. So
Bex: You would have to.
Ellen: At least a few months.
Bex: Yeah. I don’t think brain surgery is something you just like bounce back from.
Ellen: No.
Bex: If you’ve had brain surgery, let us know. What was your recovery time?
Ellen: Let us know. He, he realized while he was gone that he really needs all of them, like he needs a hole in the head. Ha ha! I’m so glad you can laugh about it. But Bobby is glad to have him back. He’s the heart of the firehouse.
Alice: Athena says he had a lot of people praying for him, not just this department.
[00:28:00] And Chim says he must’ve been listening. Cause even the doctors kept using the word miracle and yeah, I don’t blame them. He had a rebar through his head. Buck asks, “Not even a headache?” Chim goes, “Just you, Buck.” So he’s back to his normal playful self.
Ellen: He hasn’t lost his sense of humor.
Bex: No. I do. I love Bobby. Bobby then says, “so let’s light you up so you can make a wish.” Which isn’t that just birthday cakes?
Alice: Yeah. Right?
Ellen: Yeah. I don’t know why it’s got a candle. That is weird.
Bex: It’s got the candle so that Bobby can then make the joke of, you know, “We need to light the candle. All right, who’s got a match? Wait, really? We’re in a firehouse. Nobody’s got a match?”
Alice: No one’s got a match.
Bex: And then it allows him to go down to the locker room where apparently he’s got a lighter in his locker. Maybe Bobby’s, Bobby’s a secret smoker as well as being an alcoholic and a drug addict. [00:29:00] And which means that he is the first one to notice Abby come walking into the firehouse.
Alice: Looking very lost.
Bex: She does. She looks very nervous.
Alice: But she, she’s holding a plate. So she brought food!
Bex: she brought cookies!
Alice: She’s so cute.
Ellen: She is. Actually, I noticed something. Before we keep going with this scene, can I just when they are in the firehouse and they’re wearing their, like, blue uniform, coat thing. And they’ve got like a USA flag on their thing, but it’s backwards.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: Do you notice that? Do you know why that is?
Bex: Yes, and there is a reason.
Ellen: Yes, do tell me, because I was going to look it up and I forgot, so I was hoping one of you would know.
Alice: Yeah, I don’t know. I think upside down means like in peril.
Bex: I did remember looking that up. Okay, so according to this website, it’s [00:30:00] because of the way the flag is if you put it up on a flagpole, the stars are on the side of the pole.
And if you were to put that directly onto a sleeve, it would mean the stars would be on the sort of the back of the person. They’d be pointing away from the person. And that would be signaling that they would be retreating. They don’t want to be retreating. They want to be moving forward. So they flip it so stars are facing the front.
Ellen: Oh!
Bex: well that’s for the military anyway. So I’m assuming the same would apply for firefighters. Well, again, anybody in the US if you have any special knowledge about military and paramilitary uniforms and about the insignia and patches and why flags are displayed certain ways, drop us a comment, reach out to us on Twitter, inform us, please. Cause I’m just frantically Googling right now.
Alice: Yeah. Cause Australia, like we don’t really do that. Like our uniforms don’t have…
Bex: We’re not as patriotic.
Ellen: [00:31:00] Like, I mean A lot of the time, I think when we have Australian flags on uniforms, they tend to be on the front, like breast pocket type thing there, rather than on sleeves, I think.
Alice: Well, like, our firefighters don’t have flags on them at all.
Ellen: No, don’t think police do either. At least in Queensland police don’t.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: No, police don’t wear flags.
Alice: I don’t even know if our, I’m trying to remember, like, I work near a Navy base, so you’d think I’d know, but
Bex: Navy, they fly the ensign. The white ensign, or the blue ensign.
Alice: Yeah. Yeah, we don’t have flags on Oh wait, I just found a uniform that does have the flag on it.
Bex: They might wear them on their BDUs, which is like their battle dress uniforms. They might have flags on those.
Alice: But yeah, just like normal, everyday stuff doesn’t have flags on.
Ellen: So hang on, if they didn’t want the flag to be flying, like, in retreat, why didn’t they just put it on the other sleeve?
Bex: Other sleeve, yeah!
Bex: I don’t know.
Ellen: [00:32:00] Then it would be the right way round. I don’t know. (laughs)
Alice: If, if you designed the firefighter’s uniform in America… (laughs)
Bex: Hang on. No, no, no, no, no. Reddit, Reddit would like us to know that… they’re wearing it on their left hand side, right?
Alice: I think they must be?
Ellen: Yes?
Bex: Okay, so someone on Reddit and I, I mean, Reddit is usually pretty accurate, saying that historically shields are carried on your left.
And so your shield usually has like your family crest. So badges identifying people are traditionally worn on the left in reference to the fact that you used to wear your shield on your left because everybody back in those days was right handed.
Ellen: Right. Well, I wasn’t expecting it to go all the way back to heraldry, but there you go.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: [00:33:00] Thank you, Reddit.
Bex: Thank you, Reddit.
Alice: While we’re talking about the difference as well between like Australian stuff and American stuff. Cause I think I forgot to actually mention this in the first episode, but like the dispatch centers in America all go to the same place. you’re just a 9-1-1 operator, like it’s just dispatch.
Whereas here, the first thing you’re asked is if you want police, fire or ambulance. And you go to a different dispatch center for each. So yeah, that was something that like the first time I was watching, I was like messaging my American friends, like, it’s just one thing. And like, why are the firefighters going out with the paramedics?
Bex: Yes. Cause it’s all separate units for us. We have paramedics. and fire, who are different from firefighters, who are different from police.
Alice: Yeah, and like a lot of, so I’m in, like, I’m not in a metro area and so our firefighters are [00:34:00] all volunteers. There’s like maybe two per station that are paid and the rest are all volunteers.
And it’s only the cities that have paid firefighters.
Ellen: there you go. That’s your international lesson for the day.
Alice: Yeah. Like when we call for an ambulance, it’s just paramedics that come out.
We don’t get firefighters or anything.
Bex: unless they’re called as well. Yeah. But yeah, but your paramedics are going to be dressed differently from your firefighters and your firefighters are going to have basic first aid, but they’re not going to have full paramedic knowledge.
Alice: Yeah. Like we had to call the fire brigade out when we called the paramedics once because my granddad had collapsed upstairs and we couldn’t get him down. So the firefighters had to come to carry him, but like the paramedics got there first and we just had to wait around till the firefighters came as well.
So, like, they were treating him and stuff, but they couldn’t get him down until the firefighters came.
Bex: Yeah. [00:35:00] Fascinating. Yes. Anyway.
Ellen: Anyway, back to the scene.
Bex: Back to our regularly scheduled program where Abby has arrived at the firehouse and Bobby intercepts her. Obviously, you don’t want strangers wandering around your firehouse. And he’s trying to very politely figure out who the hell she is and why she is there.
And she says that she’s here for the party and he assumes that she’s a friend of Chim’s. But she’s like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then Buck comes down the stairs and like, “Abby, you made it. That’s so cool.” And that’s a quote. So cool that she made it to the party.
Alice: Oh, he’s such a kid.
Bex: He mentioned that it was very high school that he had invited her to a party and that that’s a very high school reaction.
Alice: The best part is, so this is like, just after. Not just after, but like after Abby’s had the discussion with [00:36:00] Carla about how Buck and her relationship’s just on the phone. And then Bobby says, Oh, you’re the woman from the phone. And she looks horrified.
Bex: She’s like, no, no, no, no, 9-1-1 operator.
Alice: And Buck just like strolls in completely oblivious as to what’s happened.
Ellen: And she takes, he, he takes Abby upstairs and introduces her to everybody as “LA’s fiercest 9-1-1 operator,” and then tells everyone that she brought cookies and everyone cheers because of course, everyone’s happy that she’s come to bring cookies.
Alice: And her mum definitely made those cookies. She absolutely did not.
Ellen: Yes. And he introduces her to Chimney as well, who offers her some cake and she declines.
Bex: Which, Bobby is a little bit annoyed that Chim has already sliced up the cake. Yeah. Like he really wanted to light that candle and get Chim to make a wish.
Ellen: And then Chim’s like really upset that, he’s not upset but he’s just like, [00:36:00] cranky, he’s like stabbing the cake on his plate with his fork, going. “Are you serious? I got dumped after I survived a rebar and he ends up with her? What’s this, what’s he got that I don’t have?”
Alice: And they immediately have Buck bend down and Chim’s like, “forget I asked.” (laughs)
Yeah. He just bends right over.
Bex: Yeah. That’s, that’s what you don’t have, Chim. Bobby’s just like slightly amused, slightly sympathetic and just goes, “you want some ice cream?” And Chim’s like, “yeah, I want a lot of ice cream.”
Ellen: They’ve got great chemistry, those two.
Bex: I think everybody on the 118 has really great chemistry, and they’ve always, they’ve all got really good comedic timing too.
They do. They can, they can do the snappy banter back and forth.
Alice: Like, I wonder if before they, like, between the pilot and like the first episode, they just like locked them in a room for 48 hours and was like, “yep, cool. So once you come out, you’ll have experienced a shift together.”
Ellen: [00:38:00] You have to be besties first, and then you can be in the show together.
Bex: I think they really did luck out. If they didn’t do chemistry tests with the ensemble before they cast them, then they must have realized very quickly how well they all clicked on screen. And that probably led them to writing a lot more of these lighthearted moments, because they realized that this cast could pull it off.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: It’s great.
And like, they’ve all got different relationships too. Like, Chim and Hen obviously work so close, being EMTs. That they do have such a, like, close friendship. And then Bobby and Buck are just dad and kid, like, the entire time. Whereas Bobby has a completely different relationship with Chim.
Bex: And then you’ve got Hen and Buck are like the, the chaos siblings.
Alice: Yeah, absolutely. Like Hen’s definitely the older sister that’s just like, no, no, [00:39:00] I’m so much more mature than this. And then does something chaotic. And it’s like, Hen, what are you doing?
Bex: So Abby is kind of making the, not Abby’s making the rounds. Abby is sort of planted in one spot after examining the cake, which Buck thinks is so cool, and Abby is just like, I don’t know what to think of a giant fondant head.
Alice: With a rebar through it, but sure.
Ellen: “Cool’s one thing, one thing you can call it.”
Bex: And the rest of the, the rest of the guests just kind of do drive bys past Abby. So we get Athena comes over to say hello and ask after Abby’s mum, and then Hen comes over, and she does that thing where she kind of hovers and she waits for Buck to introduce her.
Which Buck does not get that social cue whatsoever. So she does the, “Hi, I’m Hen,” very pointedly. And then immediately starts in on [00:40:00] what they’re going to do for Valentine’s Day.
Alice: Yep. Chaotic older sister.
Ellen: “Yeah, where is he taking you? Somewhere nice?” And they’re both kind of like, “Oh, no, we don’t really have any plans…”
Alice: “we’re not really, you know…”
Bex: Buck says, but “you know, I have to work” and Hen goes, “I’m working the same shift as you, we finish at two, and then I’m going to go home to my wife.” And then she bounces, which…
I watched these episodes out of order. So I watched this one before I watched 1.05 and 1.05 is when we got the big reveal that like Hen had a wife. So having that big reveal. So when I watched 1.06 this episode, heartbreaker, I thought that this was them kind of just dropping it in.
Slipping in. Oh, Hen has a wife. [00:41:00] But it’s not because we already knew that. So I don’t know whether this was them reminding us that Hen has a wife. Or this was her way of saying to Abby, you don’t have to worry about me cause I don’t want anything that he’s got. I don’t know. It was slightly odd.
Ellen: I thought, I just assumed that she was paying him out for like not having anything planned because she’s like, I’m going home to my wife and you haven’t got anything planned yet. You know?
Bex: Okay. That’s another interpretation.
Alice: And Abby’s like, we’re just, we’re just being casual. It’s no big deal. It’s definitely a big deal. It’s only a day!
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: And Athena decides that she’s gonna chime in and say it’s the only, it’s only the day he’s obligated to show you a good time. But she’s not gonna have a good time on Valentine’s Day.
She’s put in for an extra shift. And she’s gonna do, she’s going to do whatever she can to get her mind off romance for the night.
Alice: [00:42:00] Poor Athena.
Bex: Yeah, I guess Valentine’s Day is not that big a deal when you’re your husband liked the boys.
Alice: And met someone.
Bex: And he’s probably having a Valentine’s Day date of his own. With the boy that he’s met. Or a different boy, who knows. We haven’t heard from Michael in a while.
Ellen: But she says it, that where is she going to take him? And it better not be a salad bar. And Buck says it’s going to be somewhere really nice, but Hen’s like, well, it’s getting a bit late to get somewhere.
And apparently Buck knows people.
Alice: Apparently.
Ellen: So, apparently, they all go like, okay. And then after, after they like, make fun of him, he’s like, “Okay, bye Hen.” But just as he’s, as they’re doing that, the alarms go and they all have to leave. So this is like their big party that has now been interrupted in the middle of with a call.
Alice: At least they all ate something this time.
Bex: They had cake. The cake will keep them going.
Ellen: [00:43:00] They did have cake. They did have cake. We don’t get to see them at the call because the, the next scene we cut to is at an apartment where two people are having dinner at a romantic kind of set up with a table with candles and, you know, wine and stuff.
And so the girl is like, you didn’t like it. And the guys like complaining about the, the food. And then they kind of have a little argument about how the Valentine’s day plans didn’t quite go according to how she wanted them to go.
Bex: She, she seems to have very specific ideas about how this is going to go to the point where she she says to her date, whose name is Ted, just so I can have something to refer to him by.
She said, “This is now the moment in my schedule where you give me my gift.” And that’s very pointedly at the box off to the guy’s left and [00:44:00] he, he kind of looks relieved, like, okay, fine. Yes, I’m gonna give you this now. And it looks, it looks fancy. It’s, it’s a big square box. Kind of looks like a jewelry box.
Ellen: Yeah, it looks like jewelry. Yeah. But it’s actually chocolate, and cheap chocolate
Bex: It’s chocolates. And the woman sort of, she looks at the, the chocolates, looks up at the guy and says, “I like chocolate, I like diamonds. Real diamonds, not diamond shaped chocolates.” And Ted’s a bit of a douche because he looks at it and says, “Did you really think I was going to get you real diamonds?”
And the, the woman is starting to get a little bit irate because she’s, she sets out everything that she did to get ready for for this Valentine’s day dinner. And She spent hours getting ready and he bought her a 14 box of chocolates and his response was, [00:45:00] “well, maybe you should have spent less time salting the food.”
Ellen: No. And she throws a glass at the wall and it breaks into bits and he’s like “Yeah, I’m out.”
Bex: Which I completely understand her reaction at this point. But he does not. He decides to bounce. Apparently his friends have warned him away from this woman. So she’s got the crazy eyes.
Ellen: She does have the crazy eyes.
Alice: She’s like, “you told me you loved me.”
And he just goes, “I tell that to everyone.” So yeah, he goes, “you, you want me to do this the hard way? Fine. You’re not my only girlfriend. I can’t watch a movie with you. Cause I’ve got plans with another girl later tonight. Got her the same box of chocolates. You don’t mean anything to me.” And she like blocks his way and he tries to sidestep and she blocks his way again.
And then we go to a 9-1-1 call.
Ellen: She’s looking really like, you know, she’s got the crazy eyes. Oh, she’s definitely got crazy eyes.
Bex: [00:46:00] And yeah, something, something’s going to go wrong with these two. And, but we’re not going to find that out yet. Although actually, actually we kind of,
Ellen: yeah, we almost do. We, we get the first part of the, of the resolution of this. So the 9-1-1 call goes through and it’s a man who’s their neighbor, who’s saying “Something’s happening at the neighbor’s place but I don’t want to get involved. Can you send someone?” And so, Athena shows up at the door Melora, who’s the crazy eyed lady, opens the door and Athena says she, they got a noise complaint from one of her neighbors, and Melora explains that they had a fight.
And Athena asks if she can come in. And then she has a look around, you know, Melora explains that she’s been dumped on Valentine’s Day. And they have a little convo about how men can be dogs. And, you know, “I thought he’d be a good dog. I thought he’d be the one.”
Bex: [00:47:00] I thought that was, that was a good line. She, she agrees that men are dogs, but she thought that he’d be a good dog. Yeah.
Alice: So yeah, Athena sort of trauma dumps on her a little bit. “Like sometimes the one isn’t even the one. Take it from me. You can be married and still feel alone.”
Ellen: Yeah, so they connect a little bit over being alone on Valentine’s Day.
Bex: At which point, Melora notices that Athena is wearing a wedding ring. And she kind of queries, like, “why, why are you talking like this if you’re still wearing a wedding ring?” And Athena kind of says, “well, I took a vow.” And Melora thinks that’s beautiful. We notice, or Athena notices, and and we notice by Athena that, Melora’s cardigan, her sleeves have slid up a little bit and she’s got some scars running on her wrists.
So not all in the world is right with Melora. And she notices us and Athena noticing and pulls the sleeves down and said that that happened a long time ago. [00:48:00] She’s fine now. Yeah, it was just a cry for help. It’s just a cry for help. Yeah. So, Athena offers that if she ever needs to cry again, she can call Athena and gives her her card.
To which Melora says, “you’ve got such a good heart” and gives Athena a hug.
Ellen: Uh oh.
Bex: Yeah. That, that seems a little bit onomous.
Ellen: It’s quite, it’s quite sweet, but also a little ominous,
Bex: a little ominous. I think it’s just the way that Melora says it.
Alice: Yeah. And the crazy eyes.
Bex: And the crazy eyes. Yeah.
Ellen: It could be just because we know what’s going to happen now. It kind of feels ominous in hindsight.
Bex: Maybe. But Athena gets saved by the radio. There’s a robbery in progress and Athena asks dispatch to show that she’s on route so that she can get the hell out of Melora’s apartment. [00:49:00] So when well, Athena, Athena bounces. Melora considers Athena’s card. Goes back into her kitchen, grabs a glass of wine, pulls a butcher’s cleaver out of the knife block, and then carries it to looks like a coat closet in her hallway where her poor date is tied up on the floor and he’s looking incredibly frantic because we get the shot from his perspective on the floor looking up at Melora standing in the doorway with the light behind her holding up this knife and she says “I just got some excellent advice from a very wise woman,” and then lifts up the cleaver arm swings down we cut to black. And I don’t think that’s what Athena meant. no
Ellen: no and honestly, maybe she hit him on the head or something but how did she manage to subdue this dude who… [00:50:00] Like, he looked like a pretty solid guy. He was taller than her. And tie him up and gag him and everything.
Bex: He’s quite clearly conscious when Melora gets there. So why was he so quiet if he could have… Surely he must have heard that Athena was in the house. So why wasn’t he making noise?
Ellen: I dunno, I have a lot of questions.
Alice: Like kick the door or something. I know you’re duct taped up, but…
Bex: Once again, this, just don’t think too hard about these episodes, otherwise you start to see the holes. A little bit. We’ll, we’ll just, we’ll just go with it.
Alice: So we go back to the firehouse, and this is the cutest scene. I love this moment. This is so cute. It’s, it’s so cute.
Ellen: It’s extremely cute.
Alice: So, Bobby is standing behind Buck, tying his tie. And it’s like, first date.
Bex: It’s like that cute thing where you know how to tie a tie on yourself, but you don’t know how to tie a tie on someone else. [00:51:00] So, rather than taking the, like, if I was going to tie a tie for someone, I’d take the tie off, tie it on myself, and then put it over their head. But no, Bobby is standing behind Buck, hands over his shoulders, tying his tie for him.
And yeah, it’s, it’s very, a nice father son bonding moment going on here.
Alice: So yeah, so Buck’s in a button down shirt and suit pants. He.
Bex: Very tight suit pants.
Alice: Obviously. Buck like asks again if he should stay cause Bobby and Chim are pulling double shifts. Bobby says Chim’s so excited to be back, he’d work four shifts in a row if they asked him to.
Ellen: I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t be allowed to work double shifts if he’s only just come back to work. But anyway, let’s, let’s not worry about that.
Bex: No. Buck’s nervous about this date and mostly he’s nervous that he’s going on a date [00:52:00] and for Buck, as we’ve determined, date means sex. He’s like, “what if I, what if we end up having sex?”
Alice: He says, “what if we start having sex?” And it’s like, Buck, just like, don’t, Start having, like, it’s okay. You can just not have sex.
Ellen: You can just not. Bobby’s the same. He’s like, why would that happen? Because that’s what always happens, apparently.
Alice: Yeah, he’s a sex addict.
Bex: Self diagnosed.
Alice: Then Bobby goes, “listen, it’s not uncommon for a guy to use quick, meaningless sex to avoid real intimacy.”
And Buck goes, “so I can sleep with her as long as I’m not a dick about it?” And Bobby’s like, “is that what you think I said?”
Bex: Buck’s like, “that’s what I heard!” Once again, establishing that the, there’s a weird sort of mistranslation going on between what Buck hears and what Buck understands.
Alice: And Bobby’s like, “That’s not what I said. Why don’t you try something different like getting to know her. Really getting to know her?”
Bex: [00:53:00] So while this, this nice little bonding moment is going on Abby and Carla and her mum are having their own little bonding moment because Abby is getting ready for her date.
She comes out to show Carla and Patricia her outfit. It’s this beautiful like off the shoulder black dress. She’s got black heels. Her hair is out. She looks stunning. Patricia looks over and goes, “You don’t look like a whore at all.” (laughs)
Ellen: She’s like, “thanks mom.”
Bex: How are you supposed to take that? But the irony is that while Bobby and Buck are talking about Buck not having sex with Abby, Abby and Carla are talking about, yes, Abby definitely hit that if you’ve got a chance to go out and have some fun. Just worry about your own needs, start fulfilling your own needs.
[00:54:00] So, you know, we’ve got the possibility for some really awkward miscommunication going on here.
Ellen: Yep. Yep. And back at the firehouse. Buck is just reiterating that he should not sleep with her tonight, right? Bobby’s like, “no, if you’re interested in her, she deserves chivalry.” And It’s like, “yeah, I like I like the idea of chivalry.” But he puts on his jacket and he asked Bobby how he looks and Bobby’s like, “You look handsome.”
Alice: “You look real handsome.”
Ellen: He looks so proud
Bex: Yeah, his little boy’s all grown up.
Ellen: And then he says, “good luck keeping it in your pants.”
Bex: And Buck looks mortified. True father, son bonding moment there. It’s not complete unless the parent completely humiliates the child. Oh, absolutely.
Alice: It’s great. And again, it’s just, it’s such, such lighthearted Bobby from what we’ve seen. [00:55:00] Like In, you know, episode one he’s just like, “I know we’ve got this father son thing, but like, we’re not a family.”
And now he’s literally tying Buck’s tie.
Ellen: Totally a family.
Alice: It’s so good.
Ellen: So there is a 9-1-1 call, which is from a caller who says “there’s a totally insane crash where there’s like a pile up of a million cars and she’s going to be late to the V Day dance.” But yeah, there are a stack of cars piled up on a freeway.
And the firies are already there, but Athena rolls up and works out what’s going on. No one’s dead, but there is a medical transport vehicle that is in the middle of it all. And the driver says that he was delivering an organ like to a different hospital. So Athena says, says, I’ve got this, come and get in the car.
And then she just, she says, “buckle up, buttercup.” And then she just drives him like. Insane speeds, like all…
Alice: [00:56:00] Backwards! Backwards!
Ellen: yeah, backwards, backwards. Does like the you know, Dean Winchester special handbrake turn thing. And then just zooms off up the freeway. It’s like, oh my God.
Bex: This poor medic is just watching his life flash before his eyes over and over and over again.
Cause Athena is just. dodging cars, going through lights, skidding around corners. She’s as cool as a cucumber. And the music that’s playing during this scene is this beautiful jazz song by Nat King Cole. And the title of that one is “There Goes My Heart”. It just seems very apt for this episode.
Ellen: It’s quite a calm kind of a a number, considering what’s happening in the background.
Bex: You’re considering how freaked out this poor tech is getting. The poor tech! Yes, which I think makes, he is, that just makes it even funnier that everybody else is like, like, no, no, no, this is fine. [00:57:00] Uniform motorbike cops roll up and says that they’ll clear the intersections to help Athena get through.
This guy is like screaming at Athena, doing that thing where you’re like, oh, there’s a truck, there’s a truck, there’s a truck!
Bex: Red light, red light!
Bex: And I think it’s just making small talk. She’s like, so, you know, who’s the recipient of this organ that we’re delivering? It turns out she is a 16 year old high school student from Seattle.
Her whole family flew out. So it’s very important that they get this organ to her in time so that she can undergo the surgery. They finally get to the hospital and the med tech is just like, “Oh, thank God we got here,” just runs into the hospital with his little cooler with his organ. There is a doctor probably from the surgical team waiting for them.
And she thanks Athena for getting the tech there, getting the organ there. And Athena is all proud of herself. She’s like, “well, I can’t think of anything better than delivering a heart on Valentine’s day.” [00:58:00] And the doctor just says, “That was a kidney.”
Alice: Kidneys are good.
Bex: There’s just, there’s just this moment where Athena has to realign the last few minutes of her life.
And yeah. Yeah. Okay. Kidneys are good. Not quite as romantic as delivering a heart, but yeah. Okay. I’ll take that. Yeah. But she gets safe from her embarrassment by a call over her radio that 727-L30 has been requested for a welfare check back at Melora’s house.
Ellen: Athena is confused when she shows up and Melora opens the door and she’s like, “I thought you said you were okay. Or you were in distress again.” And Melora’s like, “Oh no, I was just having a moment.” And she invites her in and wishes her happy Valentine’s day.
Bex: And Melora in this scene is just, she’s got this, this like cute, off the rails [00:59:00] approach to her, like she’s…
Alice: Manic energy.
Bex: Yeah, like, she tells Athena that she raced out and bought her a box of chocolates to thank her for coming over, and then as Athena’s trying to find the words to thank her for the gift, she sort of brightly says, Oh, I ate all the caramel ones!
And then bounces off to get a glass of wine. I’m just like, what is going on here?
Alice: And the whole apartment is covered in candles.
Bex: It’s very romantic. Possibly even more romantic than it was when Ted was there. Yeah!
Ellen: Yeah, and she hands over a glass of wine and says, you know, we’re members of the Lonely Hearts Club.
Bex: But unfortunately she spills that glass of wine all over Athena.
Ellen: She tells Athena where the bathroom is so she can go and clean up. And when she goes into the bathroom Melora calls out that there’s hydrogen peroxide under the sink. And if that doesn’t work, there’s ammonia under there too. That works really well on blood.
Bex: [01:00:00] And Athena’s like “Wait, what?”
Alice: Like her face is just like, hang on.
Ellen: Something’s not right here.
Bex: So she does a little bit of poking around as you do in a bathroom, like you do that normally, but especially you do it when someone is telling you how to get blood out of your uniform. And she opens the medicine cabinet first and it is just chockers with those little orange prescription bottles.
Alice: Now are these, is that what Americans actually have, or is that just like a TV thing, the orange prescription bottles?
Ellen: Don’t know. We have to ask people to tell us about that too.
Bex: People on Twitter, let us know, what do your prescriptions come in? Do they come in those little orange bottles?
Alice: Because like, I, you see them in everything and all our things are in blister packs. And I’m like, is it real or is it just like an American thing?
Ellen: Yeah. I dunno.
Bex: Hopefully some someone will let us know what’s going on. [01:01:00] But yeah, they do seem rather ubiquitous in movies and televisions. Yeah. Anyway, as well as the investigating the medicine cabinet, Athena decides to investigate the, the shower.
Where she finds that while Melora may know that Ammonia gets blood out of material, she’s not that good at cleaning up blood from the grout of her shower.
Bex: Or the drain! And the grout is just
Ellen: And there’s a great big swirl of blood in the drain.
Bex: Yes. To which, like, Athena is finally twigged that something is definitely not right here and pulls her gun, gets ready, and asks, for Melora to give her the boyfriend who she had the fight with.
She needs his name, she needs his contact number, she, basically she needs to confirm that he’s okay because she’s thinking he’s not okay right now. [01:02:00] And he’s really not okay. Because she does find him. She finds him in Melora’s sewing room.
Alice: And he’s very dead.
Ellen: He’s not looking so hot.
Bex: Very, very dead.
Alice: But Melora’s like, glued him back together.
Bex: Yeah, his body is like, surrounded with little bottles of superglue.
Alice: Why does she have so much superglue?
Bex: I’m assuming she went out and bought it.
Alice: Yeah, like, did the chocolate shop also have superglue?
Bex: I don’t know. Although, the irony is that that’s her sewing room, so why didn’t she stitch him back together?
Alice: Yeah, maybe she went to Super-Target.
Bex: So, Athena has discovered Ted, she’s kind of stunned and in the moment or two that she hesitates trying to work out what the fuck is going on, Melora appears behind her and presses a small revolver to the back of Athena’s neck and says, very sadly [01:03:00] “I wish you hadn’t gone in there. The superglue is still drying. He’s not ready yet.” And now, and we, we finally realize just how off the rails this woman is.
Alice: Very off the rails.
Ellen: Yeah, so if, if this, like, I keep going back to this, but if this was Supernatural, we’d find out that she is like a witch who’s trying to like, bring back her lost lover or something.
Like, this is the point at which…
Bex: Well, I mean, she is, but she just has no magical ability to do that.
Ellen: Yeah, it’s just a little off the rails here. A little delusional, perhaps, but,
Bex: A little?
Ellen: Medicated to the point of being a little psychotic. Extremely psychotic. Yes. Anyway, we’re going back to a very beautiful restaurant where Buck and Abby are having their date. And the, and Buck orders some wine.
Bex: [01:04:00] And can I, why, why is Buck the one ordering the wine? Is it just because he’s the dude?
Alice: I think because he had the connections. I don’t know.
Bex: But he quite clearly has no idea what he’s doing. And I guarantee you that Abby knows her way around a wine list.
Alice: Oh, absolutely.
Ellen: We’ve seen her drinking wine in pretty much every episode so far.
Bex: So yeah, she should be the one ordering.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Yeah. And she’s watching him like almost fondly, like you do when you’re watching a kid do something grown up for the first time. Yeah. And we, we get, voiceovers, like the voiceover of their inner thoughts at this moment.
And she’s like, “Oh, he’s so cute. Oh God. I wonder if they’re going to ask to see his ID. Wait, what if he asked to see Buck’s ID, but he doesn’t ask to see mine?”
Ellen: It’s real. It’s so real
Bex: I went, I went and bought a bottle of wine this afternoon and was slightly disappointed that I didn’t get carded.
Alice: Yeah. I’m always sad now. Cause like my brother’s four years younger than me and he [01:05:00] stopped getting carded before I stopped getting carded. But the problem is now I go to the drive through bottle-o and so I’m literally driving and so they don’t ask and I’m like, yeah, okay. That’s fair enough. Like I’m also over 30, but still, it’d be nice if they asked.
Yes, very flattering.
Bex: But they don’t. Well,
Alice: So yeah, Abby’s very impressed. She’s like, “you really do know people. I don’t know how you got us in here.” And Buck says he knows the owner cause they contained a noxious gas leak for them a couple of weeks ago. And so he’s like, just don’t breathe too much and say it’s sort of cover their noses.
And you know the waiter returns, offers a taste of wine to Buck. And he’s like, “yep, it tastes like wine.”
Ellen: “It tastes like wine.” I’m like, Oh my God. That I’m like, I’ve never understood. Like, I know I am. in no way a wine snob, but I’m like, yeah, okay, I’ll taste it and make sure it tastes okay, I guess. [01:06:00] But is that the only reason that they offer you a taste first?
Like, it’s not like you can just…
Bex: To make sure it hasn’t been corked.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m not gonna say if it’s no good, go back and bring me a different one. You know, like,
Bex: yeah, it’s not to say, oh, I don’t like it. No, no, it’s to make sure it tastes… It hasn’t spoiled while it’s been sitting in there.
Ellen: Yeah, but I would never say to a waiter like, this is no good, like, take it away and bring me another one.
I don’t know. Maybe that’s just me not wanting to make a fuss, but
Alice: I mean, to be fair, like, I’ve worked in customer service long enough that a waiter could literally come and like, Spill the wine on me and then spit in my food. And I’d still be like, “Thank you. I’m so sorry for being an inconvenience to you.”
Yeah. Like “here’s five stars and like, we don’t tip and we don’t even tip here, but I’d still give you a tip because it looks like you’re having a really hard day and I’m really sorry.”
Ellen: Yeah. Well, it’s kind of like, if they, if they come later and say, [01:07:00] “is everything okay with your meals?” And,
Alice: Always when you’ve got a mouthful of food too.
Yeah. And you’re like, it’s amazing.
Ellen: I might have just been complaining that it was too salty or it was, you know, cold or whatever, but I’m always going to say, yeah, yeah, it’s all right. It’s great. Thank you.
Alice: This is the best meal I’ve ever eaten. Thank you so much. Here’s a tenner.
Ellen: Anyway, he did, they, they take the wine and you know, they have a taste and Buck has some bread, like he butters his bread and he thinks. We get the voiceover, “Oh man, she’s pretty. Her hair’s so amazing.”
Alice: “Buck, Stop. Remember you’re not sleeping with her!”
Bex: But even as he’s reminding himself, we’re not sleeping with her, Abby’s just like, “I can see his muscles flexing through the jacket as he butters his bread.” You see like the drool forming on the corner of her mouth.
Ellen: She’s so horny right now.
Bex: it’s very, it’s a very tight suit jacket.
Alice: [01:08:00] That, and it’s been a long time for her. Okay. Give the lady a break.
Bex: Yes. So speaking of people doing things when you’ve got a massive mouthful of food just as Buck takes a bite of his buttered bread, Abby lifts the wine glass to propose a toast. And so Buck tries to frantically swallow the the mouthful of bread that he’s got so that he can join in on the toast, but it doesn’t quite go down the way that it should.
And Abby kind of makes fun of him, like, did you, did you finish chewing that? You gotta chew your food, dude. But Buck’s starting to get a little bit concerned. We get the voiceover like, “be cool, we are not going to choke in front of her, we are not choking.” But he’s totally choking. Like physically, literally choking.
Alice: Yeah, full on choking. So he grabs a glass of water and Abby’s like, “no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don’t drink, don’t drink.” [01:09:00] And he drinks and yeah, it’s bad.
Ellen: And so she’s like, gets up and starts hitting him on the back, like you’re supposed to do if you get food stuck in there and Buck’s like, it’s not working.
It’s not working. And the waiter hurries back and he’s like going to do the Heimlich maneuver which is where they like compress, you know, your, your chest or your stomach. I was like thinking like, I’m sure that I was at a, at a first aid course and they recommended not doing this. But I was looking it up and it was actually just that in most countries in the world, they do say that to do it. Like if you can’t cough the object out of your throat, then the Heimlich maneuver is, is like the last resort kind of thing, but actually in the, in an Australian, I don’t know, directive or whatever, they actually suggest doing chest compressions for this.
Alice: [01:10:00] Yeah. It’ll like, it’s to try and force the object out by like forcing the air out.
Ellen: Yeah. I don’t know why that we have a different directive to everywhere else in the world about it. Is it something to do with breaking ribs or like, I don’t know, but yeah, anyway. Because I just had it stuck in my head that we weren’t supposed to do the Heimlich maneuver for some reason, but I looked it up and it’s like, yeah, you can totally do that if you do whatever it takes to get the airway clear again.
Bex: Maybe not whatever it takes, considering what’s going to come up.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Do not attempt a tracheotomy with a steak knife. That would be a bad idea, but…
Bex: Everything else is fair game. (laughs)
Ellen: But he’s still not breathing
Alice: So they call 9-1-1 and Abby, being a dispatcher, actually knows how to call 9-1-1. It’s so nice when you get. Like the change, like, you know, the last one was like, “Oh yeah, like there’s a pile up. It’s really annoying.”
Abby’s just like, yep, “this is where I am. This is what I need. This is the patient. And this is what I’m doing.” Yeah. Which is exactly what you should do. If you call the emergency services in your country, always say your location first. And what you need, like Australia’s, again, a bit different because like, as soon as you dial 000, it’ll say Fire Fire, Police or Ambulance, I think.
Whichever order they do it in, and you say that. And whenever I’ve had to call, it’s just like, “Ambulance, please”. Like, oh, “police, please”.
Ellen: how panicking you are at the moment.
Alice: Depends Like, “sorry to be a bother. I know you’re, like, I know you’re triple zero. Really sorry for bothering you, but like, there’s a car accident.” But yeah, and then like, I know the Australian ones will ask where you are. [01:12:00] But yeah, if you call the emergency services location first, so that they know where you’re going,
Don’t just be like, Oh my God, things are happening. It’s like, yep, cool. That’s no one cares.
Bex: So Abby reports to the dispatchers that she started compressions and we cut to Abby doing compressions.
Ellen: Here’s our questionable CPR of the day.
Alice: Look, the compressions were good. But…
Ellen: Oh, it wasn’t too fast this time?
Alice: No, she does compressions better than Buck does, but she does at some, like, at one point try and do mouth to mouth.
Bex: Yeah, that comes a little bit later. Which, like trying to do mouth to mouth resuscitation… The idea of mouth to mouth resuscitation is to blow air into the lungs. But if the airway is obstructed, all she’s doing is blowing it further into the windpipe.
Alice: [01:13:00] Yeah. She’s just going to push the bread further down.
Bex: Absolutely useless.
Alice: Anyway, so yeah, so she’s doing compressions. She tells them to call 9-1-1 and the waiter’s like, we already did. She goes, no, no, call them again. Put them on speaker. So. She identifies herself and asks for a Stephanie Gaskins in emergency medical dispatch. And so Steph answers and Abby is like, “yep, cool.
So I’m doing compressions. He’s unconscious. I can’t remove the object. He stopped breathing two minutes ago. Another three minutes, he’s going to have brain damage. I need you to walk me through an emergency tracheotomy.”
Bex: Stephanie’s looking around to see if anybody has heard her. And she’s like, “Abby, have you lost your mind?”
Ellen: Finally, someone with a bit of sense in this place! Like, what are you talking about? (laughs)
Bex: I want to interrupt this discussion to quickly mention that [01:14:00] we talked in the last episode about the diversity that 9-1-1 has… EMT Gaskins is a wheelchair user and it’s just, she’s just. There. In a wheelchair. There’s no mention of it.
There is no need in the particular scene for them to be a wheelchair user. She’s just in a wheelchair. And she’s just doing her job in a wheelchair. And I think that’s very interesting that that was the decision that was made. I don’t know whether it was, let’s have a wheelchair user be in this scene, or it was this particular actress auditioned and was cast in this role.
Just nice, very sort of quiet, low key diversity that they’re throwing in.
Alice: Yeah. It’s always good when it’s not like, Oh, this is a person in a wheel… It’s she’s just, she just has a job that she’s just a human because that’s what most people are.
Ellen: Is this particular character in like in future episodes? Because …
Bex: nope, no, never shows up again.
Ellen: [01:15:00] Wow. That’s, that’s a surprise because I mean, they named her and they gave her… You know, she’s got brightly colored hair. She just seemed like a really, a big personality to be a one-off character. I was like, Oh, we’ve met someone who’s going to be in it a lot more because it’s making an impression.
Alice: You do get more dispatch stuff later, but Stephanie is not part of it. Unfortunately, cause I like Stephanie.
Bex: Yeah, she’s cool. And just doing a quick Google the actress that plays Stephanie has cerebral palsy. So this is a person who is in real life, a wheelchair user, not an able bodied actress that they have dumped into wheelchairs for diversity points.
Ellen: Right.
Alice: That’s so cool.
Ellen: Well, that’s good.
Bex: So yeah. Stephanie, very reluctantly. Agrees to talk Abby through an emergency tracheotomy.
Ellen: [01:16:00] Yeah. So she’s like, “have you got a knife and something to keep the airway open, like a pen or a straw?” And so she gives everyone instructions on what she needs.
Bex: Which she’s on speakerphone. So they’ve all heard Steph give these instructions,
Ellen: Yep, but she starts giving the orders.
Alice: And this is where Abby does mouth to mouth.
Bex: Like, just trying to buy herself some time.
Alice: Like, it’s just gonna force the bread further down, but yeah.
Ellen: Maybe she’s having a bit of a panic and not quite thinking clearly at this point.
Alice: I think so.
Ellen: But yeah, Steph, like, instructs her on how to cut into… This is quite graphic. She’s, like, cutting a hole in his windpipe.
And sticking her fingers in it.
Bex: And we see the entire thing. We see the, like, the blood welling from the little divot in his throat. We see Abby sort of digging her fingers in. [01:17:00] And the instructions are quite detailed. I, I wonder whether I would be able to perform an emergency tracheotomy having watched this scene.
Ellen: Please don’t ever try. (laughs)
Bex: I’m not going to try!
Alice: Another note is that if you do call emergency services, they have like instructions on how to do stuff. So like I’m first aid trained and I’ve got a certificate that says I’m like I can do it. But if you don’t know CPR and you’re not first aid trained, if you call triple zero or the emergency number in your country, they will have instructions.
So they’ll instruct you on how to do CPR And they’ll instruct you like how to use a defib if you need to. Or, like, I don’t know if they’ll instruct you how to perform an emergency tracheotomy, but they might.
Bex: I think that’s where, EMD comes in. They’ll probably have the scripts on they have a lot of scripts.
They’ve got a lot of scripts. Different scenarios, but maybe if they encounter situations where, that’s outside the box, that’s when they call for EMD. [01:18:00] Like, we need you to talk somebody through this. I don’t know how to talk them through it. Although, yeah, I don’t know that any of them would ever really talk somebody through an emergency tracheotomy.
But here we are. She slices into Buck. She shoves the pen in. I would note that nobody mentioned having to take the nib and the ink out of the pen so that it’s just the plastic case. But obviously somebody was thinking outside the box and has done that.
Ellen: She blows some air into him through the pen and he, he wakes up
Alice: Immediately, which is, yep.
Ellen: Yeah. I don’t know.
Bex: And that’s exactly when the paramedics roll in. So once again, once again, we’ve got Abby like jumping into action only to not really have needed to jump into action.
Alice: [01:19:00] Yeah. Like she could have just been performing CPR this whole time and keeping the blood pumping rather than…
Bex: Possibly slitting his poor man’s throat.
Ellen: And letting someone professional cut a hole in his neck. Yeah.
Bex: But I think she’s, she’s got a taste of the action of actually doing something and not just sitting back and talking people through it. So she’s got the, the urge that she wants to do. So she’s going to do if she ever has the opportunity, which could possibly be dangerous at some point.
Alice: I think she also isn’t as level headed when it’s a personal thing. Which we did notice in the last episode, when her mum went missing.
Ellen: Well, we go from one tense situation to another, I guess because we get another 9-1-1 call. And this male caller is saying, “I can’t move. I think I broke my back.” And the, the 9-1-1 operator is a little unfeeling.
She’s just like, “you’re going to have to speak up. Did you say you broke your back?” [01:20:00] And Bobby and Chim respond to this one. And they knock on the door of the, of a rather large house and they’re about to bust the door open when…
Bex: They’re like, Chim is mid swing with the ram. Yeah, he wants to get that door open.
Alice: And like, also, I know that Bobby and Chim are working doubles on Valentine’s Day, but are they the only ones working tonight? Because like, where’s the rest of, like, why are they alone?
Bex: I don’t know. Bobby does say at some point that Gardner wants to spend the evening with his wife.
Alice: Yeah, but that’s why Bobby is doing it.
Like, there should be the rest of the team still. Like, there shouldn’t just be two people on Valentine’s Day night.
Bex: Well, Buck finished at two. Hen finished at two. The rest of the 118 doesn’t exist. (laughs)
Alice: I forgot, my bad. When the, when the age, the A shift aren’t working, there’s just no emergencies. That’s fine.
Bex: Nope, no ones there.
Ellen: No fires, no nothing.
Alice: Like Bobby drove the, the the engine, even though he doesn’t, he never drives. [01:21:00] Chim’s going to drive the ambulance and also sit in the back with the patient. It’s fine.
Ellen: Well, this woman answers the door in a dressing gown. So obviously she was undressed before. So she hadn’t come to answer the door. And Chim tells her that a man called 9-1-1.
And there’s a man inside the house who comes up behind her and says, “No, I’m the only man here. I’m pretty sure I’m not in distress.”
Bex: The woman is acting so shifty at this point. It’s, it’s… Something is going on here. And yeah,
Alice: not that shifty,
Bex: not that like not Malora shifty, not like crazy shifty. It’s, it’s very much like she’s getting, she’s got caught out.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah.
Alice: So Bobby asks if the two of them have been home all night and the woman’s like, “ah, I was, Alex…” [01:22:00] And the man just interrupts and goes, “Told her I had to work on Valentine’s Day, She was so mad at me, But it was all part of the plan.”
Bex: And the woman says, “He came home and surprised me With flowers and my favourite take out.” With this like, rictus grin on her face.
Ellen: Bobby and Chim are like, putting it together, going, Okay, and like we as the audience are also, okay, I get what’s happening here. So Chim wants to take a look around outside. That’s the procedure. And so they, they let them get back to their romance and they go round the back of the house.
They have a look around the pool area. But next to the pool and on some grass, there’s a man in his underwear, in his tighty whities. [01:23:00] And he’s like, “be quiet, be quiet!” And then Bobby’s like, “you jumped down from up there, didn’t you?” And it turns out this guy has broken ankles or, you know, his feet are broken in some way.
Bex: Bobby’s noticed that where this guy is lying, there is a balcony up above him, which presumably considering the guy’s state of undress, which is leads to a bedroom.
And this is actually confirmed because while Chim and Bobby are examining this guy, we cut to Alex cutting through the bedroom and out onto the balcony when, when he looks down, he can see what’s going on outside.
Ellen: They’re being kind of rough with the guy, like, you know, shoving him onto the gurney thing. He’s just like “Ow!”
Alice: Yeah, they’re definitely like, oh, well, this is the other man. They have no sympathy for him. Yeah. They say it’s called a Casanova fracture. [01:24:00] And why is it called a Casanova fracture? And Chim’s like, “Well, woman’s having an affair. Husband comes home early. Guy jumps off. Casanova.”
Ellen: Yeah. And then the guy up on the balcony is like, “She’s not my wife.”
Bex: Yeah, we, we find out that…
Alice: they all know each other.
Bex: An affair is happening, but it’s not the, the triangle that we think it is. Because the guy down on the ground who has just sustained the Casanova fracture is actually the wife of the woman and she has been…
Ellen: The husband.
Bex: Sorry, yes. They are married. But they are separated. The woman is having, is in a new relationship with Alex, but she is cheating on Alex with her husband.
Ellen: Yeah. Cause they have so much history together.
Bex: [01:25:00] And Bobby and Chim are just standing there, going, like, like a tennis match, just looking backwards and forth going, what the hell is going on here?
Ellen: Yep. And they’re like, “I’m sorry, are you okay?” And he’s like, “I’m okay. I love you.”
Alice: Yeah. And poor Alex is just like, what the fuck?
Bex: I’m out of here. Yep. And the woman comes downstairs as they’re loading Mickey into the ambulance and wants to ride with him. And Bobby’s like, “well, as, as long as the divorce papers aren’t signed yet. Sure. Why not?”
And she’s just pulled like a house coat over her robe that she’s pulled on over. The very little that she was wearing before, and she’s still got like a house slippers on. It’s very cute, but also, yeah,
Alice: Was it creepy or romantic?
Bex: A little of both?
Ellen: Yeah. Got to love Valentine’s day.
Bex: Speaking of creepy or romantic, we cut back to Melora.
Alice: [01:26:00] What a segue.
Bex: Who has now duct taped Athena to a chair in her kitchen. And she’s going off kind of on her super villain rant or monologue.
Ellen: Yeah, she’s monologuing, yeah.
Bex: She’s monologuing, like, “Ted didn’t appreciate the effort I put into Valentine’s Day, but he will once I’m done with him.”
And Athena’s like, “What do you mean when you’re done with him? You chopped him up and super glued him back together.” And what I love about the, this actress, the way that she’s approaching Melora is like, she’s obviously batshit crazy, but she approaches it with such a, like a gullibility and naivety because she just turns to Athena and goes, “well, how would you have done it?”
Like seriously, seriously curious as to what Athena would have done in that situation.
Ellen: Yeah. Like, Athena’s like, “no, look, you’re sick. You, you’re on so many drugs. You don’t know what you’re doing.” So, and Melora’s like, “no, I know exactly what I’m doing. [01:27:00] And I’m sick of people telling me what’s wrong with me.”
and yeah, Athena’s like, you, like, “Heartbreak doesn’t last forever, but some mistakes do, like, I can, the system can go easy on you, but if you hurt a cop, you’re not going to get an easy road, so untie me, please untie me.”
And then we hear this woman’s voice yelling from somewhere else in the house, “Somebody help me, help me.”
Bex: I think, I think Athena was getting through to Melora, and she might have actually convinced her to untie her, until we hear, someone else screaming and then Melora’s all, “Well, look who woke up!” And we get a bit of a change in personality from Melora. Because apparently she tracked down the other date that Ted was going to have that evening and lured her to her apartment, “hit her over the head with a pan a couple of times, [01:28:00] apparently not enough because she hasn’t lost the ability to speak” and threw her down in the basement and tied her up.
Ellen: And actually she opens the door to the basement. We actually see this girl who’s tied up with, with duct tape. Like, you know Athena’s trying to say to her, like, “maybe you should bring her up here and we can, you know, try and work things out.” And Melora’s like, “You think I should kill her up here?”
Bex: Just again, it’s that, that wide eyed, innocent, I’m taking advice from my elder kind of response. Athena’s like, that is not what I said. No.
Alice: “You think I should kill her up here?” No! No! And so Melora goes, “She has to die tonight because what if she tries to get Ted back?”
Bex: And Athena’s trying to go for logic here. She’s like, sweetheart, Ted is dead. And Melora’s like, “no, but he won’t be once I fix him. Cause he was perfect. He had a job. He was handsome. [01:29:00] The sex was great. The only problem was that he had an awful cheating heart. He just needs a new heart, a good one.”
And then we find out what what happened. has been going on in Melora’s little head. She thinks that Athena’s heart is wonderful and pure because Athena is such a good person and she honors her marriage vows and she was so nice and Melora has convinced herself that if she takes Athena’s heart and sticks it into Ted’s body then not only will Ted be miraculously revived but he will be a good person.
Bex: And Athena’s face just goes. Oh shit. Like there’s no way she can logic her way and rational, rationally talk her way out of this situation.
Alice: No. This woman is off the wall. Insane.
Ellen: Yes. And she says that “who the hell has a, it says, says I have to get a handsaw to cut through your rib cage. I mean, who the heck has a handsaw lying around the house?”
And she starts going through the knives to try and work out which one she’s going to use. [01:30:00] And just as she’s about to, well, she’s trying to work out which knife she’s going to use, but Athena’s still desperately trying to talk her out of it. Like, “Do you know what the real history of Valentine’s day is? It was a Roman pagan ritual to Lupercalia.”
Bex: Which, I mean, yes and no. There was a pagan festival called Lupercalia, and the things that Athena says in that festival did kind of happen but she’s put a very negative spin on it. And Lupercalia was one of those pagan festivals that like Christmas and like Easter, when the church, Christian church came in and forcibly converted everybody, they took over that festival and said, you can keep celebrating it, but we’re going to call it St. Valentine’s day now.
So, I mean, yes, she’s kind of correct, but she’s also, like, not, doesn’t have it quite right. [01:31:00] But it works, the spin that she’s put on it kind of works in this situation because she’s trying to convince Melora that Valentine’s Day is bad.
Alice: Yeah, and Melora’s like, that’s not true, it’s to celebrate St.
Valentine, the patron saint of love. And Athena goes, “St. Valentine, he’s the patron saint of elept…” Oh my God, I can’t talk today.
Athena goes, “St. Valentine, ha, the patron saint of epileptics, not lovers.”
Bex: Which again, he is the patron saint of epileptics, but he is also his feast day, which is the feast of St. Valentine’s. is on the day that was Lupercalia, which is the middle of February, so once again she’s just trying to minimize the, the wonder that is Valentine’s Day to try and [01:32:00] snap Melora out of going through with her dastardly plan of cutting Athena’s heart out. It’s not really working though, because she’s just pissing Melora off.
To the point where Melora turns around and says, “you’re a liar.” And Athena realizes that she’s not getting through to her and just goes for broke and just says, “and you’re a crazy bitch.” To it, like Athena don’t antagonize the crazy lady with the knives, especially when you are still tied to the chair.
Cause you are still tied to the chair. Like she’s frantically working at the duct tape and she’s getting pretty close, but she is still tied up.
Ellen: And she’s like about to lift a knife and like stab her, but there’s a pounding on the door. And we hear a woman shouting to, you know, “let me in, let me in!” and Melora stops and like stops for a moment, but then she goes to like strike her again.
And at that point, Athena has finally worked the tape off her wrists and she, so [01:33:00] she’s able to jump up and stop Melora and she grabs something from the kitchen and bashes her over the head with it and knocks it around.
Bex: There was a champagne bottle resting in an ice bucket, which I’m assuming Melora was going to crack open the champagne bottle once Ted was back in the land of the living.
So Athena just grabs the bottle and cracks that over Melora’s head and she’s out cold. Because I think by hitting her head with her, hitting her head with a bottle, her head then slams into a cabinet and then she’s down and out.
Ellen: And then she answers the door and this woman like storms in and like starts looking around the house, going, “Where is he? Where is he? And Athena’s trying to work out who she is. She’s like, “who the hell are you?”
Alice: She’s yelling, “Ted! Ted!”
Ellen: Yeah, you’re about to be severely disappointed, lady.
Bex: So this is Sandra. She was Ted’s third date for the evening. [01:34:00] But when he didn’t show Sandra tracked him down because he had the stupidity to sign into his iCloud account on her computer.
So she used that to use the Find My Phone app to track Ted down.
Alice: I love that when she sees Melora on the floor, she goes, “what kind of weird kinky crap does he have going on over here?” (laughs)
Bex: Yeah. She tells Athena well she asks Athena, “where is Ted? I’m going to kill him,” and Athena’s like, “you’re a little late. He’s already dead.”
Ellen: Oh, Ted gave his heart to someone else. Yeah, you’re his third date. And she requests, when she radios in for backup, she requests a straight jacket, a straight jacket and a horse tranquilizer.
Bex: And we have a little, have a little bit of a blooper there because Athena’s call sign is 727-L30.
But in this line, all she says is “7-L30”. So somebody didn’t pick that up when they were going through edits.
Alice: [01:35:00] Yeah. She’s stressed. It’s fine.
Ellen: If it was me, I would never remember all those codes, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of letters to remember. And they get, they get Ashley out of the basement. And she’s, you know, she says, “you girls need to do better at picking men.”
And then there’s a guy there, a detective who, who reveals the, the drugs that she has in the bathroom are all anti psychotics. So Athena has a moment where she’s like, feels a bit sorry for Melora because she was pretty drugged up and all she wanted was to be loved. But it’s just a shame that it kind of manifested in psychosis.
Bex: Melora is sitting in the back of the squad car, just looking mournfully at Athena.
Alice: And then interestingly, the homicide detective tells Athena to go home and see her husband because it’s Valentine’s Day. [01:36:00] So clearly like, he knows Athena well enough to know that she has a husband at home waiting, but Athena hasn’t been talking about what’s going on, which I don’t really blame her.
Bex: No. So then we cut to Buck who is asleep in the hospital bed after surgery to remove the obstruction from his throat and stitch up what Abby did to him. Abby’s sitting by the bed just watching him sleep and Bobby shows up.
Ellen: It did actually turn out to be quite a stabby episode, this one, didn’t it?
Alice: It did, yeah.
Ellen: Yes, Bobby shows up and asks how Buck is and then, you know, “he’d be, he’d be completely out of it if it hadn’t been for you. You saved his life.” And Abby’s just like, oh, I don’t know. Hmm.
Alice: I’m mostly trying not to think about it.
Ellen: And Bobby says that if she wants to go home, then she can. you know, she doesn’t have to sit here, [01:37:00] but Abby says she does want to, and she’d love company if he wants to stay too. So he joins in.
Bex: He immediately sits down. I wasn’t sure when he said that, whether he was trying to give Abby an out, like, you know, shades of Tatiana and Chim, or whether he wanted desperately to be by Buck’s side.
He just didn’t want to step on Abby’s toes.
Alice: Yeah. Was he giving? Was he giving her an out or himself an in? Definitely himself an in.
Bex: Yes. Definitely himself an in because as soon as Abby says no you can sit down, he’s down in that chair. Yep. He’s not leaving his boy.
Ellen: Aww.
Alice: That’s so cute. But they’re not a family, remember?
Bex: No, they are a family now.
Alice: So yeah, Bobby’s like “Some Valentine’s Day, huh?” Abby’s like “super romantic. It was all going so great until I had to cut a hole in his throat.”
Ellen: [01:38:00] And Bobby says, “Valentine’s Day really works out the way you expect it to. No, that’s, you got to roll with what comes, you don’t know what’s around the corner.”
And Abby’s like, “spoken like a true first responder.”
Alice: Bobby said it’s straight out of the handbook.
Bex: Bobby offers her coffee. And Abby sort of very tiredly says, “coffee would be okay. I can’t choke on that. Right?” Bobby’s like, “You’ve obviously never had coffee from this hospital before.” But they both get up give Buck one last look.
He’s still sleeping and leave his room to, to go and get coffee. Maybe get to know each other a little bit more.
Ellen: Hmm.
Bex: The father meeting the girlfriend, making sure she’s good enough for his son.
Ellen: Even though they’re probably of a fairly similar age, I’m guessing.
Bex: Yes, actually, yeah. More age appropriate for Bobby than she would be for Buck. And we get the beautiful song “Heartbeats” by Jose Gonzalez starts playing as we cut back to the Grant household and Athena is finally home for the night.
Alice: [01:39:00] And it’s the first time that “Heartbeats” plays. It’s not the last time that “Heartbeats” plays on this show.
Ellen: Oh,
Alice: yes.
Bex: This one’s a little bit less traumatic though.
Alice: Yeah, thank God.
Ellen: Oh. (laughs)
Ellen: Well, in this version, she comes in puts her bag down and she, and when she goes into the dining room, there’s like a glass of wine and a card is balanced on top of it. And there’s some cookies on the table and the card says, happy Valentine’s day, and it’s from all of her family.
And it says, we love you. And she sits down at the table and has a glass of wine.
Bex: It’s interesting. She’s obviously been saying throughout the whole episode that she’s going to be alone on Valentine’s day. She doesn’t need Valentine’s day, but here is her family. And even if… showing her that even if they’re not right there with her, they are still with her on Valentine’s day.
Yeah. So not a romantic evening, but a happy evening for her.
Ellen: Yep. In the end, after she nearly got stabbed and all that, that’s the end. What a crazy Valentine’s day.
Bex: Everyone survived. Just.
Ellen: Yeah. Except Ted.
Alice: Well, except Ted.
Bex: Honestly, he had it coming.
Ellen: Controversial, but yeah, he was a bit of an asshole.
Alice: He was not a good dog.
Ellen: No, no. Yeah, we did have, like at the start I was saying how I wasn’t sure about tone and this episode did sort of flip flop between, you know, that tongue in cheek kind of [01:41:00] making fun of everything tone and like deadly serious, like, I am going to cut out your heart kind of a tone.
And, but we didn’t have any like full on heartbreaks in this, in this particular episode. So even though it was called “Heartbreaker.”
Bex: No traumas in this one.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, it was generally a lighter tone than the other ones we’ve had in the last few weeks.
So what have we got coming up in the next episode? I dread to think.
Bex: The, the official summary says A full moon brings out the crazy.
So we’re going to continue the theme of the crazy for just a little bit longer. A full moon keeps the crew busy with some of the craziest calls yet as Athena investigates a potential home invasion and faces off against… [01:42:00] Oh, really? I just got that.
As Athena faces off against a rabid criminal. Meanwhile, Abby helps investigate the murder of a caller. Bobby and Buck have their hands full at a yoga studio for pregnant women, and hen’s past may become her future. Wow. Very much so.
Ellen: Do you want to give any of the content warnings now? In case people are going to watch?
Bex: Yes so, perhaps don’t watch this episode if you find depictions of labour and childbirth disturbing. If you don’t want to watch, someone cheating on their significant other. There is a domestic violence storyline that runs through the next episode. There is going to be homicide that is heard through the phone, if not depicted on screen.
There is a police shooting of a cannibal and yes, we are going to witness some cannibalism. [01:43:00] And there is a call that involves a tapeworm.
Ellen: Okay…that’s a really interesting collection of…content warnings there
Alice: Another whiplash episode
Bex: some of these things are not like the others. So tune in next, next week to work out how we put all of those together in one episode.
Ellen: Yep. Cannot wait. All right. Well, we’ve asked lots of questions in this episode of everybody. If you would like to let us know what you thought of this episode or how things work in your part of the world that we’ve asked about, you can leave us a comment on the blog posts on our website, which is thatweewooshow.com, and you can find all of our other contact details there as well. [01:44:00] You can email us contact (at) thatweewooshow.com as well. And so thank you very much for listening. And we will talk to you next time to discuss episode seven, full moon… No, what’s it called again? “Full Moon (Creepy AF)”. See you then.
Alice: Bye.
Bex: Bye.
[outro music with Ellen speaking over: 9-1-1 is a fictional show, but many of the situations portrayed happen in the real world too. If any of the topics we’ve discussed in this episode have affected you, please know you’re not alone. You can call or text numbers in your country for help. Just Google crisis support in your location to find out the number.
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