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 season premiere of the second season of 9-1-1, episode one, titled “Under Pressure”.
On one of the hottest days of the year, the first responders feel the pressure with harrowing incidents.
Content warnings for episode 2.01:
Car accident, limb amputation, bomb threat, abusive relationship depicted in a phone call.
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Episode Transcript
Bex: [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 Bex.
Alice: I’m Alice.
Ellen: And I’m Ellen.
Bex: Thank you to everyone who has listened to our first season, who has shared our social media posts and rated our episodes on Spotify and Apple podcasts. We really appreciate it.
And thank you also to everyone who voted in our Twitter poll over the last couple of days and helped us to, helped us to decide to jump straight into watching season two, rather than doing the drinking game episode that we were talking about in our last season.
Ellen: [00:01:00] Yeah. We just sort of decided to leave season one behind. And just go full steam ahead.
Bex: Brand new start,
Alice: We just wanted to jump straight into Eddie. I mean, what? (laughs)
Ellen: Just like Buck. I mean, what? (more laughs) But yes, like the majority of the people who voted agreed with that. So here we are in season two.
Alice: It was a very close poll though. I was impressed.
Ellen: Well, maybe we’ll save up our, our drinking game business for our favorite episode of season two. And we can do that later.
Alice: We’ll get there. We’ll get there.
Bex: There will be an episode where we are drunk as skunks discussing 9-1-1. We promise. Or threaten. Depending on, depending on how well that episode turns out.
But it’s not going to be this week. This week we are going to discuss the season two premiere, which is called “Under Pressure”. [00:02:00] And it aired for the first time on September 23rd in 2018. But before we get into discussion of season two, let’s do a quick recap of what happened in season one.
Alice: Yeah! So last season on 9-1-1, we were introduced to the 118.
We have Captain Bobby Nash, paramedics Hen and Chimney, and newbie firefighter, Evan “Buck” Buckley. We also meet police sergeant, Athena Grant and 9-1-1 dispatcher Abby, who is caring for her dying mother. Abby and Buck quickly started a steamy romance. Athena’s marriage fell apart. Bobby battled his demons and his past, Chimney got a rebar through his skull, and Hen endangered her marriage.
We ended last season with Abby’s mother passing and her leaving America and Buck behind to find herself, while Bobby and Athena found each other.
Ellen: It’s quite a lot happened in season one. That was, you know, a good roundup.
Alice: [00:03:00] There was a lot in 10 episodes, but yeah,
Ellen: So the first episode of season two, “Under Pressure” aired September 23rd in 2018.
So we had a quite a big break between seasons here, as I think that happens every year, right? Like there’s usually, similar to how we had the hiatus kind of period with Supernatural, we also have that with 9-1-1. We, I think the last episode was in April sometime?
Bex: They probably broke for summer.
Ellen: Yeah, it came back in September.
So the summary for this episode is:
On one of the hottest days of the year, the first responders feel the pressure as harrowing incidents keep happening around the city, including a road rage accident involving a van full of tourists an emergency at an auto repair shop and a veteran with a live grenade embedded in his leg.
Meanwhile, Buck gets a surprise visit from his sister, Maddie. Played by [00:04:00] Jennifer Love Hewitt of like several TV shows in the 90s fame. We’ll talk about that later. Also Athena questions her relationship with Bobby. Then at the fire station, handsome new hire Eddie jeopardizes Buck’s chances of being chosen for a fireman calendar in the all new “Under Pressure” season premiere.
Bex: I just, I can’t believe that of that, the entire episode they’ve decided that that is the point that’s going on between Buck and Eddie. Like, “Ooh, I’m not going to get in a calendar.”
Alice: It’s just the calendar guys. (laughs)
Ellen: I mean, that is their, one of their first kind of charge points, I guess. But yeah, a lot more happens than that.
So there were, there were a few content warnings for this particular episode that we wanted to flag. We have a car accident. We have a limb amputation, a [00:05:00] bomb threat from a live grenade that is embedded in man’s leg, and we have an abusive relationship depicted on like a phone call. So where shall we begin with this episode?
The beginning scenes or the… the intro to this episode before the title card takes, it goes on forever it feels like, it’s like, it’s a combination of several scenes that are intricately spliced together with Billy Joel’s “Pressure” playing over the top of it all.
Alice: It’s action packed. It’s great.
Ellen: Yeah, it’s an excellent intro!
Bex: It’s like they took the concept of like “Karma’s A Bitch” and all of those episodes where every single storyline has to go on theme and went, well, we actually have some real storylines that we want to deal with in this episode. So let’s just cram all of those little storylines into the cold open.
Alice: Yeah. Just into the cold open. Like we’re not even going to get to it the rest of the episode, just in the cold open.
Ellen: [00:06:00] Yeah. So first, the first thing we’re like… okay, I forgot to look this up. I was going to look this up before now. The radio station says, “Hey, LA, it’s another scorcher here. It’s a really hot day. You know what that means? Earthquake weather.”
I’m like, hang on. Does, Does being really hot mean that it’s more likely to be earthquakes?
Bex: (laughs) I literally typed into Google “hot weather earthquakes” and the first return search return was from the U.S. geological survey, which is like a U.S. government website, and it says “there is no such thing as earthquake earthquake weather”.
Ellen: Perfect. Thank you, USGS.
Bex: NASA also says that most earthquakes occur far beneath the earth’s surface, well beyond the influence of surface temperatures and conditions.
Ellen: [00:07:00] Well, maybe it’s just one of those things that you know, people in LA say.
Bex: I honestly think I didn’t click until I started doing these transcripts and doing these notes, but this was a two-parter when it originally aired.
So it was September 23rd and September 24th. They did episode one and episode two back to back. And we, I think this is foreshadowing for the end of episode one and the beginning of episode two. So it doesn’t matter that it’s not scientifically correct, narratively, it’s letting the audience know what’s going to happen.
Ellen: It is earthquake weather. Fair enough. In any case, it’s a really hot day. Everyone in this cold open is sweating a lot. Except for the 118 there. They’re quite, they seem quite cool and collected. But anyway, they’re under pressure still. So, you know, hence the music. We have an open top tour bus which is driving along a road holding up traffic.
[00:08:00] And we also have a diner, which is extremely busy, full of people. And they seem to have pressure cookers on, on the stoves for some reason, which are putting out a load of steam. There is a wedding in a church full of white flowers. That’s very beautiful. But the groom is looking extremely nervous waiting at the front for the bride to come. And then we have two electricity workers who are closing off a road where there’s a crowd of people who are trying to find out what’s happening. I assume the power’s out and they all want to know why.
Alice: Yeah, they do say that the there’s a bunch of people without power and the radio announcer like helpfully is like, “Oh, so if you’re without power, maybe just move.”
Ellen: Yeah, that’s right.
Alice: We also get some some weather updates. So he says that it’s going to be 98 downtown, which in non freedom units is 36.66 degrees. Which is like our normal summer weather.
Bex: [00:09:00] It’s hot, but it’s not that hot.
Alice: But they do say it’s 113 in the valley, which is 45 degrees, and in the inland empire, which I assume is just like off the coast is a million degrees, give or take.
Bex: I guess when you’re looking at LA, it’s all concrete. There’s like very little trees, very little shade. I can imagine that it would, whatever the temperature is, it would feel far, far hotter than it would anywhere else?
Ellen: Well, just off, just away from the city, like the, the other side of the mountains is desert, so yeah.
So the young guy who is the power, the, you know, the electricity guy who I’ve just called “young power dude” has says he’s picked the wrong week to be trained, like he obviously has no idea what’s going on, but the older guy is trying to you know, calm down the crowd while they sort out what’s happening.
[00:10:00] So that’s them set up already. There’s not much of their story to be set up before the action happens. But then we moved to the tour bus where some very impatient cars behind them start overtaking them and beeping, you know, shouting, expletives at them and stuff. And the tour guide is just looking so pissed off.
It’s just gets more and more pissed as he as things go along. So he tries to overtake in the left lane. Where are we up to? The church? Oh, no, they just check in with the church. The bells are chiming, the bride’s here, and the groom looks terrified out of his wits.
Alice: My notes literally refer to him as “sweaty groom”.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. It must be hot in the church though, right?
Bex: I don’t think think that’s why he’s sweating.
Ellen: No, but like a lot of the, the rest of the guests look pretty hot too.
Alice: Yeah, they do. Yeah. So yeah, then the, the pressure all starts to, to go. [00:11:00] So the tour bus is trying to overtake the red convertible that screeched around him earlier.
And he’s like, “Oh, if you look to your left, you’ll see a douchebag”. And then a truck starts coming. And so he has to move off the road.
Ellen: Yeah, he swerves out of the way, doesn’t he?
Alice: Then we go to the church. The sweaty groom has fucked off. And the, like the bride is like screaming at the entrance.
And the pressure cooker from the diner completely explodes and takes out all the windows. And then the manhole cover just flies like off and up in a tower of fire, lands in someone’s pool along with a bloody arm.
Ellen: Yeah, young power dude is armless.
Alice: [00:12:00] So then we get a whole bunch of different “9-1-1 What’s your emergency calls” all layered over the top of each other.
Ellen: Yeah. It’s quite effective actually, because it’s like saying the episode title again, the pressure just builds and builds. So after the emergency calls and everything, the 118 show up and they look down the cliff at the tour bus, which has gone through the roof of a house below.
Alice: It’s like a mansion. Like it’s, I’m assuming it’s some A lister’s mansion. Probably a bit closer than they wanted to get.
Bex: I do like that one of the the tourists on the bus does ask a little bit later “Do you know if anybody famous lived here?”
Ellen: And after that, Hen just gives them a look. But anyway, yeah, we do get like a series of sort of scenes of them attending it. Like, I don’t think this is happening all at once. [00:13:00] Like, unless the 118 has somehow come into possession of some kind of time traveling device and can actually be everywhere at one time.
Bex: It’s really interesting because we saw, what, three different emergencies, yet the 118 are attending all of them and every scene they’re wearing different variations of their uniform.
Alice: Yeah. So like, you’d think it’d be different days, but then also. Like, the groom and the manhole cover is definitely at the same time.
Bex: It all happens simultaneously, yet, somehow, each emergency scene has to sit and wait for the 118, because they are apparently the only firehouse that can respond.
But yeah, we see like in one scene, Hen is in full turnout. In another scene, she’s just in her t shirt, which you, you could probably go, okay, so it got hot, so she pulled her turnout off. But then they get to another scene, and she’s in like her formal button down. (laughs) [00:14:00] So, what, are they taking time off between scenes to go back to the 118 so she can change into uniforms?
Alice: Yeah, she’s gotta get the blood off her.
Bex: I think continuity is just completely fucked up with this one.
Alice: She’s gotta soak her uniform in cola first, okay? (laughs)
Bex: I will say that in that montage of the 118, grabbing their time turners and going backwards and forwards in time to be able to be everywhere at once.
We do get to see some more members of the 118. We get to see Metzen and Byrd, my loves and we get two new members, actually we get three new members, but I couldn’t see the back of one of the guys turnout, so unfortunately they’re going to remain nameless. But we can also welcome McAllister and Fabrizio to the 118.
Alice: Hooray!
Bex: I’m collecting them like Pokémon. I’m gonna have an entire firehouse by the end of this series, I swear to God.
Alice: [00:15:00] So we, we get a cut to Athena, who’s arresting the sweaty groom. The sweaty groom, he reminded me a little bit of what’s his name, Rami Malek, who played Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.
And I’m not sure if it’s just because the episode’s called “Under Pressure”.
Ellen: Yeah, maybe. But no, he does have that look about him. Big eyes…
Alice: Yeah, he’s got a little bit of that look.
Bex: Speaking of Queen and “Under Pressure”, the the show, the musical supervisor really kind of shot themselves in the foot because the episode title is “Under Pressure”, but they already used the Queen and Bowie song in the first, The, the pilot episode actually, so even though they’ve called it “Under Pressure”, they can’t use that song again, so that’s why we’ve got Billy Joel. Although I do…
Alice: Which works really well though.
Bex: It does work really well, especially with those little violin instrumentals, which works well as the like ratcheting up the tension as we’re cutting through the montage, so it’s, it’s just funny that they had the perfect song, [00:16:00] but they couldn’t use it because they’ve already used it.
Alice: They could have just called the episode “Pressure”, but yeah, whatever. So yeah, Athena’s arresting Sweaty Groom because he was apparently speeding in a stolen car, but he’s like, “No, the cars are rental”. And so then Sweaty Bride turns up and asks Athena, he asks Athena, he’s like, “take me to jail, take me to jail now.”
Yeah. Athena’s like, keep your distance, but she’s mad. And Athena asks if she’s the one that made the police report saying that he stole a car. And she says, yes. So Athena arrests them both.
And they both do not look happy about being in the back together.
Ellen: And meanwhile, in the time travel, which may in fact be earlier in the day in the diner, they’re helping a guy, [00:17:00] Chim’s helping a guy that has a fork, like all the way through his hand.
Alice: Yeah, fully through his hand.
Ellen: I don’t know how that works because it’s got… anyway, I don’t want to think about it too hard. But Hen is helping another guy who has a bottle of hot sauce upside down in the side of his neck.
Alice: An inch in his neck.
Ellen: And, and he says, “Oh God, it burns.” And I’m like, Oh. Yes.
Alice: It would. Yeah.
Ellen: “I imagine it does,” says Hen. How do they come up with these things?
Alice: In the diner, Buck’s just standing around looking pretty, but then we cut to the pool where Buck is. It’s pulling the arm out of the water with a leaf skimmer, which I feel is simultaneously fulfilling and ruining everyone’s pool boy fantasies.
Bex: Post-apocalyptic pool boy fantasy.
Alice: But he gets a big cheer when he pulls it out and he puts it on ice.
Ellen: I can’t believe all those people are still there. [00:18:00] Wouldn’t the first thing that they did be to tell everyone to get out, like
Bex: I think this is one of those scenes where you just don’t think about it too closely. Otherwise, nothing about it makes sense.
Alice: Like, I mean, the power’s out. What else are you going to do but stand around and wait for the hot firefighters? “Pressure” is still playing, by the way.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, we’re taking a long time to explain this, but it’s actually quite fast, the whole thing. In that one episode, in that one section he’s pulling that arm out of the pool, but Hen’s, like, setting up like a drip or something in the background. I’m like, was someone actually hurt at the pool party? Like I didn’t, we didn’t see anybody get hurt.
Alice: Cause they were scared of the arm. There is also no power and it’s very hot. So maybe they were just dehydrated.
Ellen: I guess. I mean, who knows? [00:19:00] We don’t get to see because we’re going to time turn to the street where the manhole covers are being put out.
Like the manhole fires are being put out with extinguishers. And Bobby looks really hassled, but he. He perks up when he sees that Athena has arrived. So she gets out of the car, leaving her sweaty couple still in the back seats.
Bex: So she’s arrested these guys and said, “Hmm, I should be taking them straight to the station to get them checked. And everything like that and put into I don’t know, like the bail room so they can get bailed out. But no, I’m going to stop by and see my boyfriend first.”
Ellen: “Yeah, my honey’s at the scene just over here.”
Bex: So we’re going to take a detour.
Ellen: Yeah. And I’m just going to leave them in the car.
Bex: I hope she cracked a window.
Ellen: I mean, it could be like 50 degrees inside that car.
Alice: [00:20:00] So, but it’s, it’s quite like a, the scene’s kind of like, Regardless of a, you know, locking a bride and groom in the car she like stalks over to Bobby and she’s like, “Yeah, they said the likely cause was frayed cables. They get overheated, start to smolder.”
Bex: Yeah they do.
Alice: And Bobby goes, “yeah, they do.” “Combustibles get trapped underground. And when the manhole cover got pulled, oxygen rushed in and boom!” And Athena and Bobby are fully just making out between the firetrucks.
Ellen: It was nice of them to let us know what happened because like every other thing, every other problem has an explanation. But this one needed a bit of extra explanation apparently.
Alice: With tongue.
Bex: What I love about this scene is that we’re We start watching it from one angle and we see Athena just slam Bobby against the side of the firetruck and start kissing him. And then immediately we cut to the other side of them, so Bobby was on our left, on the left, now he’s on the right. And they’ve obviously told Peter, look, [00:21:00] I just need you to stand like a giraffe and just spread your legs as wide as you possibly can so that you are down at Angela’s height.
Because when they start kissing, Bobby is towering over Athena. And when we cut to the other perspective, they’re at like, head height. And in fact, Peter is actually slightly shorter than than Angela. (laughs) And I thought that maybe they’d dragged out that whole apple crate thing and they’d popped Angela up on an apple crate.
But I was watching where Peter’s head was in relation to the fire truck. And I think he’s just done that Jared Padalecki thing where he’s just like legs akimbo to lower his center of mass down to her, to her height. It’s just the weirdest thing. I would love to see what that looks like in reality.
Ellen: Tall people problems.
Alice: Like, totally sexy, obviously. (laughs) So then we, we finally get the title card.
Bex: Oh my God. Welcome to season two, everyone.
Ellen: What a whirlwind! [00:22:00] Well, we go to the firehouse and Bobby is like, got a bounce in his step. As he walks through, “looking good, Sam, you make that shine, Tanika.”
Bex: I love, he walks past the final guy and he’s like, “Outstanding haircut, Martin.”
And Martin turns and looks over his shoulder. And I know that within the script, it’s supposed to be like, Martin is looking over his shoulder going, what the hell is up with Cap? Why is he in such a good mood? In my head, he’s looking over his shoulder going, what the fuck did you just call me? Cause his name’s not Martin.
Bobby got absolutely none of those names correct. (laughs)
Alice: Yeah, that’s, that’s always, always our headcanon is that Bobby doesn’t know anyone’s names except for Hen, Chim and Buck. The others just get called random names and they’re like, what? Yeah. Okay.
Bex: None of them are in their turnouts. They’re all just in their t shirts.
So there’s no names on this. [00:23:00] We can’t even double check. But yeah, my headcanon is he was like zero for three. In that short sentence. Poor Martin. Martin in, in like bunny ears.
But Hen has also noticed that Cap’s in a fine mood.
Alice: Bobby asks, why shouldn’t he be? And Hen, so Hen mentions he’s been like it for weeks but it’s starting to get on her nerves, and before Bobby can,
Bex: obviously Hen’s relationship is still on the rocks and she’s still in that. If I am having to be sleeping on the couch, nobody else gets to be happy kind of mood
Alice: and before Bobby can even answer like, what’s going on or anything, Buck just struts in holding his cell phone with a body scan on it, saying he’s dropped another half percent on his DXA scan. Luckily, he does let us know that the DXA scan measures your body fat through your [00:24:00] entire body.
And Chim asks if it measures the fat in his head. Do want to note that even though we’re in season two, Chim still has his rebar scar.
Bex: I think it’s moved. I don’t recall it being quite that low on his eyebrow. Cause it was like right in the center of his forehead. Right? But that mark is sort of down on to the side.
Ellen: Ooh. We’ll have to have a look at some pics from last time.
Alice: Look, maybe it’s a different makeup team okay.
Bex: they made an effort. That’s good. He still, he still, he still does have it. So, you know, continuity gets a, a gold star for, for remembering to give Kenneth the mark, but it’s just slightly in the wrong spot, I think.
Alice: But yeah, Buck isn’t even fazed by Chim’s teasing, cause he says they’re a week away from submissions being due for the Hot Days, Smoldering Nights, men of the LAFD wall calendar.
Bex: I didn’t even realize that that thing had a title. Until I started looking at the transcript.
Alice: [00:25:00] Oh yeah, there’s a whole title. Buck’s already at his goal weight, so it seems like his head’s working perfectly.
And I actually have like the, we have the firefighter calendar in Australia too. And I’ve got one from like 2018 on the back of my toilet door. And we just thought it’d be funny to put up because we lived in a house of lesbians at the time and I just never took it down and I also live alone now. So like, I rarely close like my toilet door.
Ellen: Right. Do you forget it’s there?
Alice: So occasionally when people are visiting, yeah, when occasionally when people are visiting, I shut the door and I’m just like, Oh Jesus Christ. Cause it’s like one of the, it’s the firefighter calendar where they’re like holding puppies as well. So
Bex: answer me this, cause I tried to look up the latest edition of that calendar cause it’s 2024 and they are.
Still going strong. It’s all like white or white passing men, right?
Alice: [00:26:00] There was, I think like one that wasn’t white. But it’s the same, like, it’s pretty much the same guys every time. Like it’s different puppies, but it’s the same guys every time. And yeah, like, I don’t know what firehouse they’re from
Bex: I actually wonder if they are really firefighters.
Sometimes, sometimes I wonder if it’s like the, the hot Italian priest calendar that you can get in Rome, where exactly zero of them are priests. They’re all just models.
Alice: This doesn’t help because when I put “firefighter calendar 2024”, I get like their shift calendar, like I don’t want their
Bex: shift. I do like watching the behind the scenes videos where they’re like dousing them with gasoline and then telling them, “Okay, now we’re gonna light you on fire and you’re just gonna stand there and smolder.”
Oh god. Suffice to say, I 100 percent agree with Hinn when she calls it “an idiotic, reductive, sexist calendar that insults the dignity of, you know, via LAFD and furthers the myth that all firefighters are men”. [00:27:00] I don’t, I, yeah, I still don’t, I still don’t quite understand why in our, this year of Our Lord 2024 we’re still selling calendars of half naked men. I know it’s for charity
Alice: Because it’s for charity!
Ellen: and also people still buy them.
Alice: I didn’t even buy mine. It was given to me from like from a friend who buys it every year. And she bought like a whole bunch cause they, they do like a thing where it’s like five for, like whatever price.
And so she bought a whole bunch and we all, we, and so it was just like in my house,
Ellen: Five… you could put them in every room in your house if you wanted.
Alice: literally! well, they have different types. They’ve got like with cats, with dogs, like just on their own, which like,
Ellen: Oh wow, you know far too much about this.
Alice: It’s just because there’s one on the back of my door. And cause my friend buys it every year and every year, she’s like, who wants it? And I’m like, no, I’m still good with my 2018 one. Thanks.
Bex: [00:28:00] But could you imagine the outcry if like, let’s say it’s still firefighters, like, we’re going to put out a calendar and it’s going to be half naked women.
Alice: See I’d be much happier about that?
Bex: I mean, yes, but Like, I don’t know, there’s this weird sort of reverse sideways sexism thing here where they would be absolutely outcry if it was half naked women in a calendar But for some reason it’s okay that it’s half naked men
Ellen: I feel like there are, already women’s calendars, like women in calendars like that already. Not necessarily firefighters, but sports people even like, you know, there are.. I’m sure you can find them.
Alice: oh, they definitely, I just go to the calendar stalls and you’ll see like the, yeah, like,
Ellen: I don’t know, why does anybody buy a calendar these days? I mean, I, to put on a toilet door I guess.
Alice: I haven’t since 2018!
Bex: To support fandom artists.
Ellen: [00:29:00] Yeah, that, yeah, that. In any case, they are entering, all of the men in the 118 are planning to enter photos in, in this wall calendar thing. And, and hence quite surprised that Bobby is interested in it. And he’s like, “it’s for charity.”
Alice: “And they say a man is sexiest when they hit 50”.
Bex: Which, “they” is very definitely Athena.
You can imagine Athena’s pushing him to do this, right?
Alice: Absolutely, Athena. 100 percent Athena. Chim says that sorority houses across the nation are ready for a new Asian sex symbol. Buck doesn’t think that they have a chance, and they’re only picking one candidate from each station. Yeah. This is followed by the most heterosexual introduction to a character ever.
Ellen: The funny thing is, Chim’s been looking away for, for, for like 30 seconds or something. [00:30:00] He’s been looking away over Buck’s shoulder as he says, or as, as he’s talking to Hen, like
Alice: Yeah, Chim’s the first one to point out the beautiful man.
Bex: I love that Chim’s the first one to notice.
Alice: I love him. Hen agrees and then adds, “and I like girls”.
So then Buck turns to see slow motion, topless Eddie Diaz putting on a t shirt.
Bex: No, no, no, but you’ve got, you’ve got to tell the full picture. So Buck turns like, who is this beautiful man?
Alice: And
Bex: as he turns. And we, the camera kind of follows Buck, so we’re now seeing what Buck sees. Salt N Pepa’s “Whatta Man” starts playing.
Alice: (singing) What a man, what a man, what a man… And yeah, slow motion. Completely, slow motion, topless Eddie. Yep. So Buck immediately asks who he is, Bobby explains he’s a new recruit who Bobby convinced to join them. [00:31:00] Meanwhile, it cuts, like it keeps cutting back to Eddie who still continues in slow motion the entire time to put on his t shirt. Like this is the longest anyone has ever taken to put on a t shirt.
Bex: I love it. Everybody else is in real time. Eddie is stuck in slow motion time in the locker room. Also, I never understood
Alice: Everyone’s just chatting.
Bex: I never understood why the locker room had like glass walls until this scene.
Alice: It’s, it’s just for Eddie Diaz.
Bex: It was for the entire season one, they set, they built the set knowing that we were going to have Ryan Guzman half naked and we needed to see all of him.
I mean, there’s always, there’s so much talk about like best entrances for a character in film and movies. And I mean, I still think that, yes, we’re from Supernatural, I think, still think that Castiel’s entrance in his first episode is the best entrance of a character. [00:32:00] But Eddie Diaz’s entrance into 9-1-1 is gonna be a close second. Just for the sheer ridiculousness of it.
Alice: So while Eddie’s in slow motion, putting on his t shirt Buck looks absolutely, completely jealous or sexually repressed. Who’s to say?
Ellen: He looks confused, at least.
Alice: He looks very confused.
Ellen: Or like, upset.
Alice: Oliver’s acting choices?
Bex: We’re going to have to get into this a little bit later on when it starts to get, but just to put a pin on perhaps what we were supposed to think Buck was thinking and feeling at that moment, and what Oliver’s expression has the audience actually thinking that Buck is thinking-slash-feeling, because there are two different things, but we’ll get into that a little bit later.
Alice: I, I feel like it should be noted right now that it, it should be very, very obvious that we are all absolutely buddy shippers and we can’t get into that too bad cause we are all aboard.
Ellen: I mean, I’ve only known Eddie for like this one episode and I already love him,
Alice: [00:33:00] Yeah, so Eddie, Eddie finally gets his shirt on and we cut to a garage.
And a man trying to pick it, pick up a tire while speaking on the phone about how short staff they are.
Bex: He’s definitely feeling the pressure.
Alice: He’s definitely feeling the pressure. Yeah. The mechanic, whose name is Hector, is trying to reason with a very mad customer who says he’s going to trash talk the garage on Yelp.
And I have to, is Yelp a thing here? Do people use Yelp?
Bex: I don’t think it’s as big a thing in Australia.
Alice: Cause I only really see Google reviews these days.
Bex: I think people are more likely to trash you on Twitter or TikTok than they are to leave a Yelp review.
Alice: Or the, the very you know, scary A Current Affair.
Bex: I’m gonna call A Current Affair, yes.
Alice: Gonna call A Current Affair.
Ellen: Maybe in 2018 Yelp was still a bigger thing.
Bex: Oh yeah, technically, yeah, we are back in 2018.
Alice: [00:34:00] So the mechanics doing the whole like, you know, “I’m, I’m doing the best I can. We are, we’re a bit short staffed, but, you know, doing absolutely the best I can.”
And then when he hangs up, he just yells “Dick!” at the phone. , which we’ve, we’ve all been there.
Bex: Mm-Hmm
Alice: But then he manages to slip in some oil and sit on an air hose and start inflating, which I definitely haven’t been there.
Ellen: It like stabs into the meat of his bum.
Bex: But the way it was shot, like, when we were watching this for the first time when we got to that scene, I had a big question about whether it went into his arse cheek or into his arse.
Alice: Yeah, I fully thought that it went up his arse.
Bex: Because I thought it made more sense that if he’s going to be blown up like a balloon for the compressed air to sort of be going into his intestines and going that way, but no.
Ellen: No, well, I was like, how gay do they want to make this? There’s like,
Alice: Maybe that’s why they changed it later and that’s why there’s like the, the comment in a minute from the, like the, just the employee going, “no, no, it was in his ass cheek”. [00:35:00] Cause maybe they were like, ah, guys, this looks real gay.
Ellen: It turns out this is a real thing that happened to somebody, right?
Bex: Yes. In 2011, a truck driver in New Zealand slipped and fell on a compressed air hose and it…
Alice: Slipped? Yeah. That’s what they all say.
Bex: It pierced his buttock and he said that he was blowing up like a balloon. Although this guy’s co workers were much better than Hector’s co workers because they released the safety valve and turned off the air and prevented him from…
Ellen: Isn’t that…(what happened with) this guy?
Bex: I don’t, I don’t know.
Alice: No, they do, they do, they say they turned it off, they were just scared to move him.
Bex: Oh okay.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah, I think they did turn it off.
Alice: [00:36:00] But yeah, so we get a, we get a nine on one call, but it’s an unfamiliar dispatcher voice cause we don’t have anyone in the dispatcher room that we know. And it’s the employee saying that the boss fell in a nozzle of the compressor and he’s blowing up.
Ellen: And when when I was before, like, I knew this was actually a real thing that had happened. I was like, there’s no way this is like… People are not balloons.
Bex: It does seem unlikely.
Ellen: when they come in and like, they, they get in there and, and Hen’s like, “The air’s even behind his eyelids”. I’m like, what?
Yeah. This is not real. But no, I mean, it really happens, so okay. I guess bodies are weird.
Bex: I’m finding more and more the real life inspiration behind a lot of the storylines for this show. It’s… So there is obviously somebody who just sits there scouring the news for stories of weird and wonderful ways that people have hurt themselves and like [00:37:00] pitching them to the writer’s room like, “Hey, I just read this story about this trucker that fell in a compressed air nozzle and blew up like a balloon. Do you think you guys can use that?”
Alice: Heck yeah. Let’s put it in right after, right after Buck stares at Eddie for a full three minutes. (laughs)
Ellen: Okay. So yeah, they’re in the truck on the way to this call, and they’re all sitting in the back of the truck. They got their headsets on so they can hear each other. And Chim’s like asking Eddie questions about his silver star and whether he saved a platoon. And Eddie’s like, nah, nah, nah.
Alice: Yeah. So I, I looked it up cause I was curious. So a silver, cause silver star. Obviously American military is a bit different to our military. So Silver Star is the third highest military decoration for valor in combat. [00:38:00] It’s usually awarded to members of the U.S. armed forces for bravery in action against an enemy of the United States. So basically he did something really good and got a medal for it. But yeah, Eddie. doesn’t seem to want to discuss it. He sort of mentions he saved a convoy.
Ellen: He downplays it, doesn’t he?
Alice: Yeah, definitely downplays it. Chimney still looks really impressed.
Buck looks about 0.2 seconds away from rolling his eyes and Hen immediately asks Eddie if he’s heard about the hot firefighter calendar. And if looks could, if looks could kill, Hen would be needing CPR right now because Buck looks absolutely betrayed. And Hen just smirks at him. And when Eddie asks like, “Sorry, the what?” and just goes, “It’s for charity!”
And Bobby turns and just cracks up laughing.
Bex: I love, since Eddie joins the, the 118, we get a lot of these scenes in the back of the fire truck with Bobby up the front and the others in the back. And [00:39:00] it’s so very much the kids in the back seat and dad up the front just shit talking amongst themselves.
Ellen: Dad looks like he’s having a great old time, though
Alice: yeah, normally Bobby would be like “Children”, but because Bobby’s in such a good mood, he’s just like “hehehe”. So yeah, Buck like changes the subject, asks if his full name is Eduardo and Eddie says, no. Buck asks if anyone ever calls him Diaz and Eddie says not if they want him to respond.
Eddie also says he can’t tell if Buck’s being serious. And Chim says he operates under the assumption that nothing Buck says is serious, and Bobby’s still just grinning at them the whole time.
Bex: Buck’s trying to get a nickname for Eddie because he says that everybody else in the 118 has a nickname. And I was, I was going to give him shit and say like, what did you, like, Eddie is a nickname.
[00:40:00] What do you… like, Eddie is a nickname the way that Hen is a nickname. He doesn’t need a nickname. But then I realized when I was going back through the transcript, when he asks Eddie, so is your full name Eduardo? And Eddie says, no. It doesn’t occur to Buck that there are other names that could be shortened to Eddie.
He just assumes that Eddie is Eddie. And so therefore, they need to find a way to shorten Eddie, because Eddie is his full legal name. He needs a nickname.
Ellen: Bless his heart. But Eddie’s not biting. He’s like, nah.
Bex: He’s very, he’s very sort of reserved, so very keeping to himself a little bit with these guys, which I can understand because they’re on him. Like, he’s like the shiny new toy and they all want to play with him.
Alice: Yeah, and like he’s, he’s, he’s from the army, so like he, he moves, like he, he would move around a lot.
[00:41:00] They don’t just have the same people all the time, like they have different people that they go between and like, that sort of thing. So this isn’t his first, first day at school.
Bex: I also imagine that I think this comes in a little bit later as well, this is just a job for Eddie at this stage. Like, he doesn’t understand that the 118 is family, that it’s not just a job for these people and they’re trying to, they’re testing him out as a new member of the family and he’s just thinking, shit, it’s just my first day at work.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: And what a first day it is.
Alice: I know, it took him two, three whole minutes just to put on his t shirt. (laughs)
Bex: And then, and then his first kind of emergency straight out of the academy is a dude being blown up like a human balloon.
Alice: Yeah. He just learned how to put out all these fires and now he’s like, Oh, okay. I just have to deal with a collapsed lung.
Ellen: It’s paramedic stuff. [00:42:00] So they, They can’t, they roll in and they they say a whole lot of jargon, medical words. There’s so much medical
Bex: shit that I couldn’t even, I have no idea if any of it is correct.
Ellen: No, I didn’t even bother
Bex: I didn’t even write it down.
Alice: They do like, so they say that they’re most worried about the air around his heart and lungs.
Cause it’s like obviously compressing major organs. Eddie’s trying to get oxygen in his nostrils, but the air is like coming out. and pushing everything out. Chim’s trying to get fluid in him, but it’s like pushing a needle into a stone. But yeah, so after a lot of medical jargon, Buck is basically supposed to get a huge needle into him to help relieve some of the air around his heart and lungs.
But when he goes to do it, him and Eddie bicker. Totally is like, you know, super normal behavior.
Bex: But it’s, it’s, but it’s, it’s not bickering though. I mean, I know that Buck probably thinks that it’s, he’s taking it as bickering, [00:43:00] but it’s just Eddie going, I have experience in this. I want the best for this patient.
Therefore, based on my experience, I think you should do X.
Alice: Oh, absolutely. But Buck’s like, no, I’m not the newbie anymore. You can’t tell me what to do.
Bex: Yeah. He’s like, no, we do Y. And Eddie’s like, “No, we’re going to do X. Here, let me.” Again, it’s the, he’s just doing a job. Yeah. He’s just doing what is the best for this patient based on his experience and based on his training.
Whereas Buck is still, I know that he is a, a fully grown firefighter now. He’s all grown up. He’s got his place in the 118, but I think he still feels like he has to prove himself. And yeah, he probably
Ellen: Especially with this new meat coming in, new blood, but also they do, he does look to Eddie… not to Eddie. To Bobby to check.
Whether it’s okay if he goes ahead before he does it, it doesn’t just sort of take over. Bobby’s like, yeah, okay, do it.
Alice: [00:44:00] Yeah. Bobby sides with Eddie after. Eddie explains to him his reasoning. Like Eddie’s not just like, no, we’re going to do this. And the way, Hey, like I’ve found that this works better in the field.
Bex: Yes. And he’s not like overly emotional. He’s not the delivery is just, this is what I think we should do.
Ellen: He’s not trying, he’s not, it doesn’t sound intimidating. He just says, what he thinks is best.
Alice: He’s very, yeah. Level headed, very army medic. So Eddie takes the needle from Buck and sticks it in, and as the air deflates, so like it’s working but gives Eddie a super heterosexual look.
It’s totally, you know.
Ellen: This air is like coming out of this guy like he’s a fucking air mattress, (laughs) like it’s just hissing out of there and he’s just slowly going down and he starts breathing again and they’re all like, Oh, how are you doing? Like, you know, slowly it’s okay. [00:45:00] It’s like, I don’t know if that would be how it would come out of him anyway.
Bex: It’s not something I really want to experience to be able to tell you, oh yeah, that’s 100 percent accurate.
Ellen: And then as they’re loading him into the ambulance, Hen says to him, “How you doing there, Hector?” And Hector just lets out this huge fart that just goes on and on. It’s like, is it really getting into his guts and coming out that way?
Like, anyway, a fart joke always goes down well, so who cares? Who cares if it’s accurate?
Bex: We do get a shout out to the episode where it’s after Hector is getting all of the gas out, we just go, well, the pressure’s got to go somewhere.
So if you’re taking a drink, take a drink.
Ellen: And we do get a little at the end where they’re all you know, packing up the trucks and whatever.
Bobby and Chim both say, you know, good call, nice job to Eddie. [00:46:00] And Buck sort of, you know, you know, straightens his spine and says, “yeah, good call”. And then he walks off. It’s like
Alice: looking very constipated. Yeah.
Bex: He did not have to say that, but he saw sort of everybody else and went, yeah, okay, this is what I have to do. I have to congratulate him as well. So
Alice: yeah, like he’s, he’s making an effort in his own strange, totally not repressed way. So Buck goes home. But Buck goes home to Abby’s house,
Bex: Yes! he’s now living full time at Abby’s house, apparently.
Alice: Yep. All the lights are off. Like it’s completely dark, but when he turns them on, he hears the shower running and sees a bottle of wine and a glass on the kitchen counter and there are women’s clothes tossed on the bed.
Bex: So he puts two and two together and comes up with, Oh, Abby’s home.
Alice: He lights up like a kid on Christmas. Like he immediately starts stripping, which
Bex: yeah, he does. I have, I love that there are so many half naked men in this episode. I mean, what a way to open up a season.
Alice: Men? Men? We’re about to… anyway so yeah, starts stripping, swaggers towards the bathroom. But unfortunately for everybody involved, except for the audience it is not the return of Abby.
It’s Maddie, who is also. Naked! It’s great. Great time. So yeah, we meet Maddie for the first time. She calls him Evan. They scream. She says she was in town and wanted to see her little brother.
Ellen: So she let herself in and helped herself to his wine.
Alice: Yeah. And then just like undressed in the dark and was showering in the dark. Like what?
Ellen: Well, I assume the bathroom light must have been on, but Anyway. [00:48:00] So It’s all very strange.
Alice: yeah, two, two out of the two new main characters that were introduced in this episode were introduced topless. I have no notes. It was excellent.
Ellen: It was a very horny episode, this one.
Bex: It’s so horny.
Alice: It’s a lot of pressure.
Bex: But yeah, yeah, the whole setup of we do get an explanation as to how Maddie got into the apartment, which was that basically she showed the soup of her boobs. And said that she was Evan’s sister, and that got her in through the door. But I, I don’t know if I were going to visit my little brother, who I had not seen in an extended period of time, that I would help myself to a glass of wine and then throw all of my clothes on the bed and take a shower while I was waiting for him to get home.
Ellen: I have a lot of questions.
Alice: Yeah, like, I can honestly say I’ve never, I mean, my brother only lives 30 minutes away, but, like, I’ve never showered at his house, like. And like, where is Maddie’s suitcases?
Bex: Yeah. Why did Buck not [00:49:00] see that?
Ellen: And also, you haven’t seen him for a while. And you just Yeah, like
Alice: I let myself into my brother’s place now, but like, I never used, like it’s, it’s only been like
Ellen: It’s extremely presumptuous to just show up, let yourself in and then get in the shower.
Alice: Getting in the shower is weird.
Bex: It’s one of those things where it makes great television, but just don’t think about it at any depth because you are going to just, it’s just going to fall apart like a sandcastle in your hand.
Alice: I guess it’s hot as well. So like maybe she drove down or maybe she had to take the bus or the train or something, and so she was sweaty.
So maybe she was having a cold shower.
Bex: I don’t know. But Maddie is played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, and we’re not going to go through all of the things that she has been in because that will literally be the rest of this podcast is just listing every single TV show and movie that she has been in,
[00:50:00] She is a very hardworking actress.
Alice: I love her so much.
Ellen: I think the main thing that I knew, I recognized her the most from is, I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Bex: Yes. Oh, see, I grew up with Ghost Whisperer.
Bex: Ghost Whisperer was good! Yeah. But yeah, I think Party of Five was the big one and then it was I know what you did last summer.
And then she just started popping up everywhere. Like you couldn’t get through a TV show in the nineties and the early two thousands without Jennifer Love Hewitt showing up at some point.
Ellen: Well, she’s looking a little older. Obviously it’s like, you know, 20 years later kind of thing by this point,
Bex: she’s still beautiful.
Ellen: She’s gorgeous. Yeah.
Alice: And yeah, very impressed that she was introduced topless.
Ellen: After they’re both dressed again they actually sit down and, and Buck’s like, so what, why are you here? [00:51:00] How, how did you get in here? That’s where she talks about boobs.
Alice: I was actually really confused about the time because obviously like it was dark, but Buck is also a firefighter. So the time, time’s weird. And then he made Maddie dinner. But it was scrambled eggs.
Ellen: But it was breakfast, yeah.
Alice: But they do explain that. And then they explain it! And I was like, I’m so glad they explained it because I was so confused, and then they actually explained it.
Ellen: And they’re drinking wine. Like, what bacon and eggs.
Alice: Yeah, they’re drinking wine. But yeah, Buck, like, explains that Bobby taught, has been teaching him how to cook, but only how to cook breakfast so far, and I’m like, that’s so cute!
Ellen: And he also likens Bobby to Guy Fieri, and I, I don’t know much about Guy Fieri, but I don’t think that he’s anything like Bobby. (laughs)
Bex: No, he is nothing like Guy Fieri.I think that was just the writers scrambling for some kind of celebrity chef that the people who were watching would connect with. But yeah.
Alice: Like Gordon Ramsay? No?
Bex: Which, like, Anthony Bourdain would might have been?
Alice: I just feel like [00:52:00] Maddie, upon meeting Bobby, would have been like, Oh, you’re not,
Bex: you’re not at all like Guy Fieri.
Ellen: It’s like, Oh, I thought you were going to be so different.
Alice: So yeah, so Maddie does say she originally went to the address that Buck’s Christmas cards kept coming from, but the guy, who I guess is Buck’s old roommate said that Buck was at Abby’s. So she went over, told the building manager that she was his sister and then it helped that she had boobs and she was let in.
And then we find out that Buck didn’t even realize she was still getting the Christmas cards and that they haven’t been in touch for three years. And Buck immediately goes, so where is Doug?
Bex: Bloody Doug.
Alice: So clearly, like, there’s been someone keeping them apart. Maddie says she doesn’t know or care, Buck asks if she left him, and she agrees, finally.
[00:53:00] But she does say that their parents don’t know, and that Maddie doesn’t want anyone knowing. So she’s there to lie low.
Bex: So Buck offers to let her stay with him at his girlfriend’s place. Because he’s looking after it while she’s out of town. I do love he’s like “She’s out of town but she’ll be back soon. Like she’s coming back. I promise you she’s coming back.”
Alice: Yeah, we find out she’s now in Italy. So clearly they have spoken briefly She also said he should do what he wants while she’s gone, but he wants her to come back. And Maddie is the best older sister ever and just straight up tells him that she’s banging other guys.
Ellen: Yeah, because she’s supposed to be having a great love experience.
Alice: And Buck’s like “So you came all the way from Pennsylvania to crap on my life?”
Ellen: But no, she’s, she’s just passing through. So, but Buck’s really happy that she’s there. Then we go to Bobby’s place. Where Bobbie and Athena are watching a TV show called Claws.
Alice: [00:54:00] Bobbie’s rubbing Athena’s feet.
Bex: Very sweet. And Athena is live tweeting the episode.
Ellen: With her Claws friends on Twitter.
Alice: Which is cute because that’s how we met!
Bex: I love Bobbie’s absolute confusion. Because he’s saying like, can’t we just sit and watch the show? Like you’re constantly tweeting, going, no, Bobby, that’s how you do it.
Like you have to watch the show and you have to find out immediately what all of your friends think and whether they’re reacting the same way to the scenes the same way that you’re reacting.
Alice: And then you start a podcast and, what?
Bex: Do you think Athena would be up for a podcast? Like, can you imagine Athena and all of her online girlfriends doing a podcast about Claws?
Ellen: Oh my god, yes please.
Alice: Oh, they would absolutely grab a glass of wine and they would do a podcast. But Athena’s too busy.
Ellen: I would listen to her read the phone book, so that would be fine.
Alice: Yes. Right.
Bex: [00:55:00] But Athena’s answer to Bobby’s confusion about her live tweeting is that he’s he’s just never been out to the movies in Crenshaw.
Apparently the movie viewing experiences out where Athena is from is a little bit different from the experiences that Bobby’s had. I can imagine Bobby’s, like, used to watching movies, just sort of sitting there silently taking it all in, and then afterwards you out and politely have a discussion.
Whereas I think Athena’s probably more used to throwing things at the TV and yelling at the screen as you’re watching. Much more interactive experience.
Alice: So Bobby asks if they do want to go out and see a movie, but Athena kind of shuts it down and says that she wants to keep their relationship just, like, to themselves, like behind closed doors for a bit. No pressure.
Bex: Yes, no pressure. I think Bobby would like a little bit of pressure.
Ellen: He’s feeling a bit of pressure at the moment.
Alice: [00:56:00] So then we go back to more heterosexual
Ellen: Oh yes, this is the gayest gym scene
Bex: Can somebody please explain to me the tank top that they put Ryan Guzman in?
Alice: It’s for us, I’m not sure what you’re confused about.
Bex: If you haven’t seen this episode yet, I need you to just look up what they’ve got Eddie dressed in because it is almost, it is almost nothing. Like, it is strange.
Alice: It’s 95 degrees downtown, okay? It’s hot.
Bex: Okay, but Chim is in, like, full sweats and a t shirt. Buck is in a normal tank top.
Ellen: Do they have air conditioning in the firehouse?
Bex: Oh, probably not, because they have to keep the roller doors open so they can get the trucks in and out. But basically he’s in this slutty, slutty little tank top that basically covers nothing. And so thank you, costume designers. [00:57:00] Buck is on one side of the gym doing barbell rows and Eddie walks in and just starts doing these fancy spinning roundhouse kicks and sparring on the punching bag to which Buck can do nothing, but just, “well, I’m, I’m just going to get some heavier weights over here. Cause I can, I can lift heavy,”
Alice: Literally struts over and gets more weights and puts them on the bar and then starts taking selfies like he doesn’t even lift yeah, look how hot I look near the hot, the big weights.
Ellen: The music is like “blood in the water. Like, if you want some trouble, come and get it”, you know?
Alice: So Buck’s taking these selfies and Eddie like heart, like just glances over and goes, Oh, you’re in the wrong light.
And it’s like sorry, Eddie, what? So Buck says some of them don’t need light to look good. And Eddie starts explaining how to get the muscles to pop in photos. Cause the lights in the firehouse are like, [00:58:00] blue and flat, whereas you want, like, warm lights with depth.
Bex: But he’s explaining this to Chim because Chim has kind of wandered over at this point and is looking very intrigued because he is obviously trying to get good photos for the calendar, so he wants any possible advice that he can get on how to take photos.
Alice: Eddie is immediately like, yeah, just have a look at these topless photos I have on my phone.
Bex: Oh my god.
Alice: For the calendar. One of them has a kitten!
Ellen: he says the light in the room is flat and blue, and it’s totally not. Like, for a start, it’s not.
Alice: Well, it would be, it’d be fluorescent.
Ellen: Blue light is, yeah, fluorescent. White fluorescent bulbs, but the, the filter or whatever they’re using in the camera, the lighting in the studio or wherever they’re filming, this is not white, it’s warm light and the photos that he shows of his bulging muscles are in black and white. So
Alice: [00:59:00] yeah, so they’re black and white. One of the first one has a kitten. I’m not sure where he got a kitten. And then like one of them, he’s got like a big like chain cutter. And then the other one, he’s topless with an axe.
Bex: And Buck kind of wanders over and very sort of snarkily says it’s cheating to submit photos taken by a professional. Eddie cracks up and says, the photographer is 12. She’s my niece.
Eddie, are you telling me you forced your 12 year old niece to take photos of you while you were topless?
Alice: While you were topless! Like, what are you doing? Also, I’m fairly sure that Eddie’s 12 year old niece is never mentioned again.
Ellen: Also, he then pimps her out to Chim! To take photos.
Alice: This is not appropriate, this is inappropriate. This is not appropriate at all to let your 12 year old niece do.
[01:00:00] Like, this is probably why Eddie’s 12 year old niece is never mentioned again. Eddie’s 12 year old niece’s parents see what she’s doing and go yeah, we’re going no contact with Edmundo.
Ellen: Okay no more photos of your uncle. Oh my god.
Alice: And his weird fiery friends. Like, what the fuck?
Bex: I mean, it makes sense in this moment, but when we start to learn more about Eddie and like, his history and where he’s from, it starts to make less and less and less sense.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: That his quote unquote niece is taking these photos.
Alice: Like, I’m fairly sure he’s an only child. I don’t remember them mentioning Oh no, he has Does he have a…?
Bex: Let’s, we’ll come back to that, we’ll get to it as we get to it. I mean, I will give the writers grace that perhaps when they wrote this scene it was supposed to be this wholesome, like my, you know, my 12 year old niece, isn’t she such a good isn’t she such a good photographer.
And then whoever was doing the special effects, like that person that loads in the images on the phone afterwards, went, okay, [01:01:00] I need photos of Ryan that he would submit to a calendar and did not read that they were supposed to have been taken by a 12 year old. So there was a kind of disconnect between the script and what ended up on his phone.
But otherwise the, the whole idea of Eddie out in the backyard with his, His 12 year old niece, like, I’m just going to take my shirt off.
Ellen: Let’s not think about it too hard.
Alice: It’s bad. It’s bad.
Ellen: Once again, let’s not.
Bex: But yes Chim is so desperate to get good photos that he, he sort of gloms onto this idea of this 12 year old taking shirtless photos of him.
Alice: Also inappropriate. He says
Bex: he’s, he’s trying to, in his spiel to try and convince Eddie to set this up for him, he says that he It’s been told that he photographs like an Asian Fabio.
Alice: [01:02:00] Also not appropriate.
Ellen: I don’t think that’s better!
Alice: So meanwhile, Buck, Buck is still just lifting weights. And Eddie finally asks what his problem is. And Buck says that Eddie is. He doesn’t like how comfortable Eddie’s become already. Eddie says he doesn’t mean to step on any toes, and he knows that Buck’s going through some personal shit with his girlfriend just having broken up with him.
And Chim, who’s like, doing some sort of exercise in the corner, just starts counting really, really loudly when Buck asks who told Eddie that Abby broke up with him. Like, “who told you that?” “21, 22, 23 yep, no, wasn’t me.” Then we get this whole, like, You know, Eddie’s like, no need to be threatened by me, and Buck goes, why would I be threatened by you?
And Eddie goes, exactly, there’s no need to be.
Bex: [01:03:00] And here’s where I think we can start talking about the disconnect between the script and Oliver’s acting choices. Because I think we are meant to believe that Buck is threatened by Eddie’s arrival in the 118, that it’s, you know, this, this new guy has come in and he’s feeling like… I don’t know what he’s supposed to be feeling like.
But the way Oliver is responding in these scenes completely undermines everything the script is trying to do. So like, in that whole scene where it’s he’s telling Eddie that Buck’s problem is Eddie. And it’s like, you’re my problem. You’re not supposed to just walk in here. Like you’ve been here for years.
It’s meant to be a getting to know you, period. He’s not angry. He’s upset. He’s stammering. He’s hurt. Because when he came into the 118, he didn’t get to just walk in and be comfortable like this. He had to work his way up. He had to build those relationships. So he doesn’t understand.
Alice: [01:04:00] He has to be a probie first.
Bex: Yeah. So he doesn’t understand how this Probie has just waltzed in and is so completely comfortable. There’s another line…
Ellen: He’s waltzed in with his pretty, pretty eyelashes.
Bex: And Buck with his like bundle of insecurity is like, I don’t know how you’re doing it, but that’s not how it works. You’re supposed to start at the bottom and work your way up, not just jump to the top.
And I don’t, I don’t particularly think that Buck is, feels threatened because he thinks that he is at the top. I think he’s quite aware, well aware that Cap is at the top. He just resents that there is a hierarchy, there is a pecking order in the 118, and Eddie is not respecting that. There is a line where he tells Eddie, you’re supposed to respect your elders, and Chimney sort of pipes up and says, “you’re not his elder, Buck.”
Which I think is the way for the audience to understand that Eddie is older than Buck. [01:05:00] But as far as the LAFD is concerned, Buck is his elder, because Eddie has just graduated from the academy, so he’s a probie firefighter. Buck has finished his probationary period, he’s a fully fledged firefighter. So he is, as far as the firefighter’s concerned, he is Eddie’s elder.
Maybe not in life experience, maybe not in age, but as far as the firefighters are concerned, he is.
Alice: Yep, but being that Eddie’s done the whole army stuff. He just waltzes in going, yeah, whatever.
Ellen: Is he feeling disrespected in a way, like?
Bex: I don’t think he, it’s not, not him personally disrespected. I think he is possibly feeling disrespected on the part of the whole 118. Because that is their family.
Alice: Yeah, like the hierarchy is not being respected.
Bex: Yeah, it’s like, and it’s, Like I said, when Buck arrived, he had, he did not know his place. [01:06:00] He had to find his place and he just, he simply cannot comprehend that Eddie knows his place immediately, or it doesn’t care his place.
He’s just there to do a job.
Ellen: I mean, it’s a very real emotion to have because they’ve, they’ve been in this tight knit group for some time now, like you know, at least a year, right? I don’t know how long it’s been. How long season one took to happen. But whenever someone new does come into a group that has been together for a long time, there is like a ripples in the… you know?
Yeah. It’s, it’s natural for him to feel a little bit threatened and not him personally, but like the status quo has been threatened.
Bex: Yeah. Yeah. But like, as we’ve said, continuously through the, the first season, we are from the Supernatural fandom. And in the Supernatural fandom there is something that some of us like to [01:07:00] call the “Jackles Jacting Joices”, which is when there is a complete disconnect between what the script has said and what Jensen Ackles chooses to do on screen.
Usually, mostly when it comes to Dean and Castiel on screen where whatever the script says, Jensen will do something which completely flips that on its head. So I think we need to start discussing the Oliver Stark acting choices. Because this is not the first
Ellen: We need to come up with a snappy, like alliteration for it though.
Bex: Yeah. Jackles Jacting Joices is just perfect. It just works so well.
Ellen: But unfortunately, Oliver doesn’t really rhyme with anything. It doesn’t work.
Bex: No, it doesn’t, but yeah, this is not the first time the way that Oliver Delivers a line, the way that Oliver reacts in a scene changes the intention of the scene in a way that I don’t think the writer’s intended.
[01:08:00] So that’ll be something else for us to, to discuss as we move on with this season.
Alice: It’s also very interesting coming back to this episode after watching season seven. Which also has a jealousy storyline. It’s very interesting to see the choices and the parallels between the two.
So we go to a 9-1-1 call of a guy who has a grenade go off.
Ellen: As you do.
Alice: So his house is full of militia shit. The victim’s name is Charlie, the grenade went off while he was cleaning it, and he’s a collector. So he collects a whole bunch of military stuff.
Ellen: Yeah, Buck just asked him if he pulled the pin, and he’s like, no no, it’s not that kind of grenade.
It’s for a, it’s a practice round for a grenade launcher. So it wasn’t supposed to go off, but it did. He’s got metal, he’s got shrapnel in his leg, and his femoral artery has been nicked.
Alice: Yeah, his femoral artery has been nicked. So there’s a makeshift tourniquet that I assume that Charlie did and they load him into the back of the ambulance.
Eddie is riding in there, and Bobby tells Buck to go in there too because they need to be a team.
Ellen: Yeah, can I just say, before we go on I noticed in this scene, in this bit, now that I’ve noticed it, I won’t be able to unnotice it, but this, the show in general uses the siren noise to change between scenes, right? Sometimes when there’s no sirens involved in this case, there’s no, in this case between when they’re inside and when they’re outside putting them in the ambulance, there’s a siren noise, but there’s no reason for there to be any siren noises in either of these scenes.
[01:10:00] And I was just like, why is the siren on? The ambulance is already there. But anyway. I’ve just, now that I’ve noticed it, I keep noticing it all the time. And there’s no reason for there to be sirens and noises, but there are anyway. So they get in the ambulance and it’s a little awkward, but you know.
Alice: Buck’s trying to like make small talk, but not small talk. So like, you know, they’re like, yeah, there’s a lot of metal in here. So Buck goes, “I guess you’ve seen a lot of shrapnel wounds” and Eddie still like shutting down any talk of the military. Just goes “My share.” And Buck immediately goes, “Ever see a guy with a length of rebar stuck through his skull?”
And Eddie…
Bex: I love Eddie’s response.
Alice: “What are we measuring here, Buck?” Eddie, I think you know, like, just, just whip it out. Just whip him out.
Ellen: Maybe not in the ambulance. That might be That’s unhygienic.
Alice: [01:11:00] None of us are going to complain. So while they’re trying not to have a dick measuring contest Eddie realizes that it isn’t a practice round.
because practice rounds have blue caps and this one has a gold cap, which means it’s a live grenade. So he immediately screams for the ambulance to pull over. They’re very confused because they’re like, well, it’s already gone off. Like, what do you mean? It’s going to go off again. And so Eddie explains that the round has two charges.
One’s to push it out of the launcher and then one that goes boom. And it hasn’t gone boom because it has a proximity sensor, so it doesn’t just go out of the launcher and then blow up in whoever shot its face. And from his hand to his leg isn’t far enough away, but it could go off at any moment.
Ellen: Yeah, pressure!
Alice: The bomb squad are there. The bomb squad are there and say that they can’t do anything. They’re like, it’s, it’s not a bomb, it’s a grenade. We have to call someone in from the military, but they’re an hour away. [01:12:00] And like Charlie’s femoral artery is bleeding. He doesn’t have an hour.
Ellen: I’m surprised he’s lasted this long.
Alice: Eddie says he’ll do it. And Buck immediately goes, yep, I’ll help.
Bex: Isn’t it convenient that they have a guy with a Vietnam era grenade stuck in his leg and they just so happen to have an army medic on the 118?
Alice: It’s amazing. Cause the exact same thing happened in Grey’s Anatomy.
Bex: He’s so lucky that he didn’t set off that grenade until Eddie had graduated from the academy and had joined the 118.
Alice: He was just waiting for it.
Ellen: He’s a lucky bastard.
Bex: He is.
Alice: So they get to work trying to remove the grenade they’re like chatting to Charlie to try and keep his mind off it and ask like, you know, if he served.
Turns out he wasn’t in the military. He tried to enlist, but was 4F, which is unfit for military service. [01:13:00] And I know that one! From 91 Whiskey, which is a Destiel fanfiction.
Ellen: is, I don’t know, who says fanfic never taught you anything?
Bex: Yeah fanfic has taught me quite a lot, but nothing that I could share on a public podcast.
Alice: There’s so much that I wanted to relate this episode to Dean Winchester Beat Sheet, but I have been. Like really holding it in.
Ellen: Oh, you totally can. Okay.
Alice: So yeah, he had an enlarged heart, so he’s instead spent the last 40 years teaching seventh grade.
Ellen: Yeah. And Eddie says “Not all, not all heroes serve on the battlefield.”
So then they get, he gets this huge pair of like grenade extracting tongs. And
Alice: obviously like, what else, what else would you use to extract grenades?
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. And says that he can’t… The sensor is measuring the distance by how far it’s, how many spins it’s done, how many rotations it’s done. So they have to try and pull it out without twisting it or anything, which is going to be pretty hard.
Bex: [01:14:00] Which is not what he was talking about earlier. He just said it was travel distance…
Alice: It was like, proximity sensor. And now it’s rotations. So it’s this next part is more Oliver Acting Choices.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: And he’s straining so hard just to pull this thing out.
Alice: It’s just weird. Eddie’s getting the grenade out and like, he can’t move it.
And Buck, like, it, it, it’s just, my note literally just says “interesting”, but then like, His mouth’s open and Eddie’s like, lifting it up. And he puts the grenade in the box. If buck was, they’re both hing sweat.
Bex: If, if Buck was a woman, I think the response would be “Sploosh”. (laughs)
Alice: Yeah.
Like full on. Like he put, he puts the grenade in the box. His like Buck’s mouth is open. [01:15:00] He’s panting. Open mouth panting, the box shuts…
Ellen: He looks so happy though. He’s so, he’s
Alice: And I need a cigarette afterwards. Yeah. Like, holy shit.
Bex: He has a competency kink.
Alice: I think it was supposed to be, show the tension.
Bex: Yeah, because there, there was a line about, you know, you’ve got to keep the pressure, they’ve got to keep the pressure on Charlie’s leg, but there’s not too much pressure.
The tension is ratcheting up. It’s a very tense scene. Yeah. And I think it’s supposed to be like, oh, tension. There’s a different kind of tension going on in this scene.
Alice: Yeah. Yeah. Like, it’s, yep. Yep. Yeah, I’ve never smoked a day in my life, but I need a cigarette after that.
Ellen: But the funny part is he’s like, he gets, puts the grenade in the box and then buck, like, you know, they’re smiling each other and he straightens up and then it rattles around in the box. (laughs) Like pay attention!
Alice: [01:16:00] So they, after we all have a breather they get outside the ambulance they get Charlie out. The box is in there. The bomb squad calls for a robot so that they can get the grenade out of the ambulance. Eddie says that Buck did great under pressure and that he can have his back any day, Buck says, or you can have mine. The facial expressions are still…
Bex: Which again, I think was meant to be like, well, no, no, no. You don’t, you don’t get to… And like, you could have my back because maybe I could step up, but it’s so much just like a little puppy just lighting up that the big dog has paid attention to him and he’s getting compliments.
Alice: Seriously, the facial expressions.
Ellen: And even, even Eddie’s reaction is like, oh, you’re cute.
Alice: Yes. But yeah, so Buck like, you know, trying to be all, impressive. goes, “I was never really worried anyway”. And then the ambulance blows the fuck up.
Bex: [01:17:00] Which, again, I don’t understand how, because if what Eddie was saying was correct, and it’s like proximity based on how many times, is the…was someone, somebody, somebody sitting in the ambulance just shaking the box backwards and forwards?
Ellen: yeah. Like I assume that’s like, why would it just blow up otherwise?
Bex: I, I don’t know,
Alice: I do love though, like, like Buck full on like ducks and Eddie just goes, “You guys hungry?”
Bex: Yeah. Like, yeah. Next. Not at all fazed by ambulances blowing up. Bobby’s probably looking at it going, “ah, shit, how do I have to explain that I need a new ambulance?” That’s going to be some paperwork.
Alice: It’s going to be so much paperwork.
Bex: Ah, so while the boys have been blowing shit up in an ambulance Chim and Hen have been back in the 118, and we get to have this conversation between them about the fucking calendar. Because Chim…
Alice: [01:18:00] Oh, yeah, so Chim’s photos, again, topless.
Bex: Yeah. Well,
Alice: that’s apparently taken, apparently taken by Eddie’s 12 year old niece.
Ellen: Yeah.I mean, they’re very nice photos.
Bex: But they are very nice photos but Hen thinks the whole thing is just ridiculous.
Alice: And there’s also one with a puppy. I don’t know where they keep getting these baby animals from,
Bex: from trees! Don’t like firefighters get kittens and puppies from trees like they rescued them. Isn’t that their whole job?
But while Hen is looking at it as, you know, it’s sexist, it’s reductionist, you know, it’s just a bunch of hot men, half naked hot men, and she’s not into men, so she’s not interested. Chim has a slightly different perspective on it, and he wants to be in the calendar not because he wants to, like, get his shirt off and be photographed, [01:19:00] but because he wants other Asian American boys and girls to know that being a firefighter is an option.
Because when he was growing up. The the Asians that he saw on television were the computer geeks that hacked into the system. And they were the evil drug Lord, or they were like working as a dry cleaners in laundry fabric commercials. He didn’t see anybody doing jobs like being a firefighter. And he wants them to know, he wants the, the Asian American youth to know that that is an option.
Representation matters. Yes. Yeah. The line is, when a kid thinks of a firefighter, do they think of someone like Chim? Do they think of someone like Hen? They don’t. They think of Buck. They think of Eddie. And he wants them to be able to hear the word firefighter and go, yes, [01:20:00] Asian American male, yes. Queer black female, they’re all firefighters.
Hen agrees, but she says she’s not taking her shirt off for a calendar.
Ellen: And then Chim’s like, “Yeah, you know what, I’m not either.” And he just shuts his iPad, I mean his laptop. And Hen’s like, “Oh no, I didn’t mean that.” But he says, “No, I can’t compete with those guys. And, I’m not gonna try, so, Never mind.”
And off he goes. And Hen’s like, “Oh no, what have I done now?”
Bex: Yeah. Cause I can see it from her perspective, why the calendar is a bad thing, but I can also see it from Chim’s perspective. Yeah. That if they could get a little bit, if they could get away from it just being the, the straight passing, white passing men, it would probably be a really good thing.
Alice: Yeah, that’s it.
Ellen: So we’re going back to Bobby’s place,
Bex: [01:21:00] Yeah, we’ve just broken, broken Chim’s heart, now we’re gonna break Bobby’s heart.
Ellen: Yeah Athena knocks on the door, and Bobby opens it, and he’s wearing like a nice blazer, and he looks all flash. And she says, oh, are you coming in from somewhere?
And he says, “nope, we’re going out. Here’s some flowers. We’re going out.” She’s like, “oh no, no, I bought some Thai food. We’re not gonna go out.”
Bex: She’s got a plastic bag full of takeout in her hand. She is.
Alice: But also, what’s she gonna do with the flowers if they go out? Like, yeah. Come on, Bobby.
Bex: I think we’ve mentioned this before, but if you’re going to pick someone up for a date, don’t bring them flowers on the date, the flowers are far after the date, like the next day when they have a chance to put them in water. Don’t expect your date to carry around a fucking bouquet all night.
But Bobby says like, I wanna take you on a proper date And Athena’s response, which I 100% agree with was, that’s so sweet, but you gotta give me fair warning, although in her, [01:22:00] her, it’s, you gotta give me fair warning so I can get all dolled up for you. For me, it’s just, you gotta give me full, fair warning so I can mentally prepare and change all of my expectations and, you know, psych myself up for the date. But yeah, we’ll say it’s because I’ve got to get…
Ellen: You can’t just spring a date on someone.
Bex: No, you can’t.
Alice: No. No, I need to know if I’m leaving the house.
Ellen: Also, she’s brought food with her. Were you just gonna leave it behind? Like I guess you could just shove it in the fridge, but you know.
Bex: I’m going to say that they have not communicated what was going on that evening. Athena has shown up assuming that they’re just going to spend a night in.
Bobby was obviously thinking, I will meet you or I’ll come pick you up and we will go out. And neither of them has communicated this to the other one. So here we are, we’re at a standoff.
Ellen: [01:23:00] And Bobby realizes that, oh, he says like, You don’t want to go out. And I’m like, why don’t we go out on a real date?
And she’s like, well, I like when it’s the two of us. And Bobby realizes that she just doesn’t want to go out with him at the moment. So we asked her like, why, you know, how, who are you hiding from what’s going on? Well, why don’t you want to go on a date with me? And she says, it’s not the same. I don’t like being pressured.
It’s not the same thing. Like this whole argument is really sad.
Yeah, she’s feels like she, no one in her family has, has gotten divorced before. So she is a failure because of that. And for her to then go out with him and show him off. So soon after all this other stuff’s gone down, everyone’s going to think she’s a tramp.
Bex: Yes. It’s, this conversation is interesting because it reveals to them that they’re both coming at this relationship from different perspectives. [01:24:00] Bobby, for Bobby, this is… this relationship is Bobby coming back to life. It’s redemption. But for Athena, it’s a little bit more complicated. She’s failed.
And she does not see this relationship or she’s projecting that other people will not see this relationship as being anything positive.
Ellen: Yeah. And Bobby’s like, “That’s not true. Like no one’s going to care.” And she’s like, “well, you have the luxury of not caring. I’m a black woman who has, you know, can’t keep her man.
So therefore, I’m ashamed.” Or he, he actually asked her first, are you ashamed of me? Right?
Bex: Yeah, he says, “what are you ashamed of? Are you ashamed of me?” And she goes, “no, but yes,”
Ellen: I am. Yeah. I’m ashamed of us. I’m ashamed of being happy, which is, oh, you know,
Bex: it’s just,
Ellen: she’s carrying a lot of guilt.
Bex: [01:25:00] So messy.
Alice: Yeah. It’s really sad. Cause like, Bobby. does feel like it’s a redemption for him. Like we saw him throw out his book at the end of the last season.
Bex: Yes, he’s chosen life. He’s chosen, he’s chosen Athena over his family and his debt to God. And then here’s Athena going, “Well, is it that great though? Can we just, you know, keep it on the down low? Like I don’t want anybody to know about you.”
Ellen: Yeah. She’s ashamed. He’s hurt. Yeah, he’s hurt by it.
Bex: He asked her earlier in the argument slash discussion whether it was a race thing and it’s not. It’s not in the way that he’s thinking you would.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: There’s definitely implications of race going on with being, [01:26:00] you know, a black woman dating a white man. It’s just, it’s so complicated.
Ellen: that doesn’t seem to be quite what she’s worried about though on the surface.
Bex: I think there is, maybe, maybe it’s just me looking back at this scene having seen the latest seasons and seeing how other characters, especially other black characters, react to Athena dating a white man. And I’m reading that into this scene, like retconning it into this scene.
Alice: Mm hmm.
Bex: But I think, I think it’s, it is implied the end of this discussion is that Bobby kicks her out of his apartment.
Alice: Yeah, asks her to leave.
Bex: It’s literally just “I’m sorry it’s so complicated. Leave.”
Ellen: Please leave. Harsh!
Bex: Yeah. So Athena sort of packs up her Thai takeaway and, and, and leaves.
Ellen: [01:27:00] Yeah. So next scene, we have some YouTubers who are This is Shea and Mitch, who are Shea’s Army of Mayhem.
Bex: Shea’s Army of Mayhem!
Ellen: “We’ve got this savage young man, Jesse. He’s agreed to let us cement his head inside this microwave.”
Alice: “So random, so awesome.”
Ellen: And so they do. They just, I, I don’t know.
Alice: Yeah, like we see them mixing the cement, they pour the cement in the microwave, and then they They do give him a breathing tube, and then just shove his face down.
We do get some Fallout Boy, which is nice.
Ellen: Yes, and a very homoerotic you know, mixing scene of concrete.
Alice: Yeah, with a reenacting Ghost.
Ellen: But then immediately we cut to the 9-1-1 call, where, “we need help. My friend’s micro, my friend’s got a microwave stuck to his head.” And the operator’s like, “his head is stuck in a microwave?”
[01:28:00] And Mitch is calling. “No, it’s cemented on.”
Bex: Yep.
Ellen: And so the operator is just probably like, “what the fuck? That’s one, okay, chalk that up on the what the fuck board for today.” They’re, you know, the 118 show up and they, go in at the back where the guy, you know, Bobby’s like, “is this a YouTube prank?” And then Mitch is like, “don’t judge. Followers equals cash.”
Alice: We’re absolutely judging.
Ellen: Everybody is judging and they can’t, they’re trying to get the frame off. They’re trying to work out if he’s breathing okay. He’s starting to choke and he starts panicking a little bit. And then he stands up and stumbles around and falls into the swimming pool. And sinks to the bottom.
Bex: Buck immediately dives in. And so does Eddie. Eddie is not far behind him.
Alice: We get two very wet boys.
Ellen: We do. Oh, they’re so pretty
Bex: And then for some reason, this pool must be like the Dead Sea because [01:29:00] this guy has a block of cement on his head and it’s either there is so much salt in that water that it has, like, the buoyancy is just increased.
Or Buck and Eddie are far, far stronger than they let on because they very easily pick up this massive block of cement and swim it back to the surface and lift it up out of the water and put it on the side of the pool.
Alice: It’s fine. Shush. Just look at the wet boys and enjoy.
Ellen: Okay.
Bex: I, I mean, I mean, I can’t believe that this guy…
Alice: Shh, No logic, just wet boys. (laughs)
Ellen: No, the logic is out the window because like, he’s not breathing anymore. And they take this hammer
Alice: Oh yeah, there’s also a plastic bag over his head and like, he can’t breathe. They’ve got 30 seconds to get him out. It’s a whole thing.
Ellen: [01:30:00] They take this hammer thing with a big spike on it. And they hammer it into the concrete.
Bex: It’s like the, all right I don’t know. “I’m hammer, you’re chisel, let’s go,” and I swear Buck should not be swinging that hard. Because then there’s somebody’s head…
Ellen: No. There’s a fucking spike on, into, going into the concrete. I’m like, you don’t know where that guy’s head is. This seems unnaturally risky.
Bex: I mean, if you’re going to do it, yes, but how about do it off to the side?
Like, at the corners, and then slowly work your way, but
Ellen: Yeah, I, I, I It doesn’t look as cool on TV, I’m sure. I’m sure
Alice: it’s fine. Wet boys. Wet boys.
Ellen: The guy’s fine.
Bex: So anyway, he swings, it cracks concrete, comes off is Chim doing resuscitation at this point?
Ellen: Yes, he’s doing compressions.
Alice: So they bag him, they’re doing compressions the whole time, then they bag him, he wakes up, which definitely wouldn’t happen.
And so the YouTubers immediately start filming.
Bex: Hang on, before, how is Chim’s CPR technique?
Alice: I was too busy looking at very wet Buck. (laughs)
Ellen: [01:31:00] It was fast. I thought
Bex: it was fast. He seemed to have like, Kenneth seemed to be bracing quite well through his arms. There wasn’t floppy elbows. I thought it looked good.
Alice: Chim’s CPR technique is always the best out of all of them.
Ellen: Oh, that’s good. Yep. Considering he’s, he’s the paramedic then. Yeah, that’s good.
Alice: Nah, it’s good. Yep. Nah. So I just timed it. Very good timing. Excellent. Good job, Chim.
Bex: Well done, Kenneth.
Alice: He actually sings “Staying Alive”, not whatever heavy metal Buck listens to. Yeah, so the YouTubers start filming and Bobby and Buck are not happy about it.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Bobby’s immediately like, are you filming us? And Buck is like, you were just crying two minutes ago.
Bex: Yeah, because the YouTuber switched from panicking about his best friend to like back into his YouTube persona as if it didn’t happen.
Alice: [01:32:00] He literally says if we didn’t film it, it didn’t happen.
Ellen: But then Bobby just goes no, and he grabs the phone and kicks it into the pool.
Bex: I love that it was like, Shay’s going like, “say hello Shay’s army” and puts Bobby on camera and Bobby’s like, “hello Shae’s army, goodbye Shae’s army.” I’m going, dude, you can’t do that to someone else’s personal property. Yes. I mean, I know that was very satisfying in the moment, but you can’t do that.
Alice: I’m pretty sure the guy’s going to get arrested. It is what it is.
Ellen: I mean, Bobby’s also having a really hard day. He just like.
Bex: Oh, he just broke up with his girlfriend, or he’s in a fight with his girlfriend, so
Alice: And his girlfriend’s a cop, so, like, who’s gonna arrest him?
Bex: So, while Bobby is taking his anger out on unsuspecting YouTubers Athena is back at home having a conversation with Michael, who has stopped by because Harry has left a textbook behind?
[01:33:00] And, oh my god, that is One of the worst things about split custody and like sharing parenting, the amount of stuff that has to go backwards and forwards and you have no idea which house it’s at and when they need it at which house at which day. I wholeheartedly agree with the whole GPS trackers on everybody’s shit, just so you know where it is at any given moment.
Alice: Oh God.
Bex: But Michael recognizes that Athena is in a mood, but Athena isn’t sure if this is something that she can talk to her soon to be ex husband. I don’t think they’re, because it’s only been three months since the end of season one. So I don’t think the divorce would have gone through yet. So we’ll go soon to be ex husband.
Can she talk to him about boy troubles? And Michael’s like, after what I’ve been telling you, you, yeah, you can tell me anything. [01:34:00] So Athena confesses she’s been seeing someone. It’s a firefighter. Nobody knows, not even Henrietta. Because, and now he wants to tell the world, and Michael very knowingly goes, “And you don’t.”
Athena’s like, I don’t want to tell, but then he started to push and Michael’s like, Ooh, he’s, he knows, he knows his wife. He knows what she’s like when she pushes and that when she’s pushed, she will push back.
Ellen: Yeah. And he also says that she is afraid of being hurt. That’s why she doesn’t want to invest.
And she’s just like, it’s safer that way. Michael gives her this whole speech about how he’s, he, he was, he was afraid for his whole life until he stopped trying to [01:35:00] control it and just had faith and went with it. And now, now “look at us now, we’re still family.” And Athena doesn’t say anything back.
She just looks at him and goes, I guess.
Alice: It’s really sweet that we do see their relationship. still being that of, like, best friend.
Ellen: Yeah, friend. Yeah, I was happy to see him supporting her in this.
Alice: Because like, they didn’t break up because there was no love. That’s absolutely not why they’re getting a divorce.
Which is also why he’s like, it’s not a failure because we’re still a family.
Ellen: Yeah. Which is a little bit confusing for all involved, but you know, they’re still besties, so.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Go, we go back to the firehouse again and they are in, I don’t know, is this the same recreation room that they are always in with the kitchen and everything?
Because now there’s a pool table in there, I don’t know if [01:36:00] that was there before.
Bex: It’s… yes? No!
Ellen: It feels like it’s… Like it’s upstairs where the, you know, there’s stairs that go down from there to where the engines are, right?
Alice: I think it’s the same area. We just haven’t seen the pool table. Like maybe they just got the pool table. It’s been four months.
Ellen: They also have a pinball machine, which is called “First Responder.” Why?
Alice: Well, they were, was it last season that they were playing a game where
Ellen: they were driving a firetruck around
Alice: where they were driving a firetruck and Hen’s like “you’ve got to stop running over the people?”
Ellen: Like, are you only allowed to have like fire related games in your, firehouse?
Bex: Maybe! I don’t know. I have a feeling that where the pool table was used to be extra tables and chairs for like the B shift.
Alice: Yeah, the B shift have now been down, like, demoted to the gym. (laughs)
Bex: They literally cannot eat anymore.
Ellen: They’re not allowed to be in there at all. Oh dear.
Bex: [01:37:00] Upstairs is just for the, those four members of the 118. But we are going to find out the results of the calendar.
Ellen: Like, Buck’s still trying to come up with a name for Eddie first.
Bex: Oh, I was trying to ignore that because it’s so bad.
Alice: It’s so bad. It cracks me up.
I’ve seen this scene so many times because it’s in one of the Buddie videos that, like, I watch regularly. And I just love that Hen’s just like “It sounds like gastrointestinal.”
Bex: Yeah. Cause he wants to call him GI. Like G.I. Joe, but not with G. I., not G.I. Eddie, not G.I. Joe, just literally G.I. Yes, it does. I agree with Hen.
It sounds like gastrointestinal. Yeah. It’s not, just stick with Eddie. Eddie is, Eddie is a nickname. If you accept Bobby and you accept Hen as nicknames, just accept Eddie as a nickname.
Alice: And yeah, Chim is just, yeah. dipping celery directly into a peanut butter and I need to say, it looks like it’s already been bitten when he’s, and I’m [01:38:00] like, no, Chim, no!
Bex: I’m going to, that’s Chim’s, that’s Chim’s peanut butter.
Nobody else uses that peanut butter. Just Chim.
Alice: I mean, to be fair, yeah, to be fair, this is what I do at my house, but that’s because I live alone. I don’t do that at work.
Ellen: It’s kind of disgusting in the workplace.
Bex: So Bobby comes in to announce who has won the calendar. And Buck, being very magnanimous in his perceived victory, says, “No hard feelings, no matter who won.”
And Bobby goes, “Well, that’s great, Buck, because it’s not you.”
Alice: Hey, can we mention their little fist bump too? It’s so cute. They like, they like knock forearms.
Ellen: Yeah, because they’re buds now.
Alice: It’s like not even a fist bump. They’re like, It’s so cute, because they’re buddies, because they got a grenade out of the guy.
Ellen: They’ve got each other’s back, apparently.
Bex: Yeah. So Buck immediately assumes, “Well, if I didn’t get it, then You know, congratulations, GI!” Eddie must have got it.
Alice: And Bobby just goes, it wasn’t him either. And Buck’s just like, what? What do you mean? How did the hot guy not get it? What are you talking about? [01:39:00]
Bex: And there’s like the wheels clicking over.
It’s like, wait, you? Yeah. They picked you? Bobby does not take offense at this. He’s just like, no. And they all turn to look at the fourth member of the 118 who they knew was interested in being in this calendar and yeah, Chim’s there with a stick of celery in his mouth. And I love that he turns and looks over his shoulder to see if there’s anyone standing behind him in the kitchen.
Alice: Oh, bless his little soul.
Bex: But apparently Chim is Mr. April. And he is absolutely blown away, not because he can’t believe it, but because he never submitted a fart art. So he’s very confused.
Ellen: He does give Hannah a look as she comes over to congratulate him. She’s like, thank you. Like giving him, giving her a [01:40:00] confused look.
But they all congratulate him. And then…
Bex: Athena arrives in the firehouse.
Alice: Struts her way up.
Bex: She hopes she’s not interrupting anything. Bobby sort of comes to, to cut her off. I don’t know what he was thinking. Was he going to kick her out of the firehouse? “What are you doing here?”
Ellen: But she just says, “I’m sorry.” And just lays a smooch on him. And everyone is just like, whoa,
Bex: peanut gallery is absolutely entertained. Confused.
Ellen: Yep. Delighted.
Bex: Delighted. Because Hen turns around and looks at Chim and Buck and says, all right, pay up.
Ellen: Yeah. And they’re like, hang on, hang on, you knew about this? And she’s, and Hen’s like, well, you were both happy at the same time, [01:41:00] and then you were both pissed off at the same time.
Alice: Meanwhile, Eddie has no idea who any of these people are, so he’s just like
Bex: Or why Chim and Buck are suddenly handing over money.
Ellen: It’s like, who’s this chick? What’s going on here?
Bex: Why is he kissing the captain?
Ellen: Yeah. And she’s, and Athena asks Hen if she’s good with this, and Hen’s like, “I’m just mad I didn’t fix you up first.” So, she’s fine with it. And so Bobby and Athena go off to have some smoochies in the corner. Maybe not because it’s a workplace, but you know, who knows.
Alice: Between the firetrucks again.
Ellen: Yeah. Oh, I don’t wanna know I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve seen some action.
Bex: Ugh.
Ellen: Buck’s been doing that in the first season.
Bex: So we’re going to go back to Chimney and Hen, and trying to get an explanation [01:42:00] as to exactly how Chimney became Mr. April when he didn’t enter the competition in the first place.
And it turns out that Hen submitted him Chim’s a little confused because he deleted all those photos that Eddie’s 12 year old niece took of him.
Alice: Probably because the CIA got involved.
Bex: He got put on some sex offender list. But Hen says that she didn’t use those photos. She used a photo that an AP photographer took of Chim at an accident last year on the 710.
Every time they keep mentioning the 710 and accidents, I get very wary. So anyway, there was a school bus accident and there were, Chim was photographed carrying a girl across the street, across the freeway, and that’s what Hen sent in. [01:43:00] Not a photo of Chim pretending to be a big damn hero, but an actual picture of him being a big damn hero.
Yeah.
Ellen: Because that’s what he is.
Bex: And that’s what a hero looks like. Yay. It’s so sweet.
Ellen: And Chim’s so touched. And then he, after Hen sort of walks away, he goes, Yes, Mr. April! Just to himself. He’s chuffed. He was super sweet, yeah. Because of course a hero looks like him. He is one.
Bex: Yes. And he does look just as good shirtless as the other boys do.
Ellen: Absolutely.
Alice: Yeah. I loved Chim.
Ellen: We’ve got one more bit in this episode. One more bit? Oh, maybe two more bits.
Bex: One more bit.
Ellen: Yes. Back in Abby’s apartment. We’re just going to keep calling it Abby’s apartment, right? Is it officially Buck’s apartment at some point?
Bex: No, it’s still Abby’s apartment.
Ellen: Okay.
Bex: It’s decorate, it’s decorated by Abby. It’s, he’s literally just moved his stuff in.
Alice: [01:44:00] I’m pretty sure Abby’s probably still paying for it.
Bex: I’m actually, I’m assuming that’s why Buck has moved in, just so that
Ellen: He’s house sitting, right? Like, he’s
Bex: Yeah, it’s Yeah.
Ellen: He’s just looking after it while she’s…
Alice: He also wanted to move out of the frat house.
Bex: Oh, yeah. I mean, he was already kind of moved in at the end of season one anyway, so it’s now just, like, official that he’s moved in.
Ellen: Yeah, but she’s not there.
Bex: But she’s not there. So yes, Maddie is in Abby’s apartment.
Alice: In Abby’s apartment, googling hotels that accept cash.
Bex: And the phone rings and it is a hospital that comes up on Caller ID, so Maddie answers it thinking that it’s her boss, but it’s not.
Ellen: It’s not. It’s Doug. Her ex, who asks her, oh evidently I’m in her office, “I’m in her boss’s office and she’s not your boss anymore because you quit. Where are you?” [01:45:00] And Maddie’s like, really terrified. She looks. Like, she’s about to start crying. She says, “It doesn’t matter. We’re done.” And Doug’s just shouting at her saying, “I decide when we’re done. Tell me where you are. I’m going to have to come find you.” And Maddie just throws the phone against the wall.
Alice: He’s clearly not a nice guy.
Ellen: It doesn’t sound like it, no.
Bex: Fun fact. The actor who is voicing Doug in this scene is. It’s Brian Hallisey, who is Jennifer Love Hewitt’s real life husband.
Ellen: Oh, geez.
Bex: And the legend, the legend of 9-1-1 goes that when Jennifer agreed to take the role of Maddie knowing that she had this abusive husband storyline, she convinced them to cast her husband as the abusive husband, because he would be the only person that she would trust doing those scenes with.
Ellen: [01:46:00] Oh, okay. That’s fair enough. That seemed pretty harrowing. I mean, if she’s even listening to the phone call when she’s doing that acting, but
Bex: I would imagine that in that scene that she probably had her husband standing off to the side of the set doing it. Yeah. But yes. Yeah. I had no idea. There you go. I thought that was apparently just going through Reddit nobody knew this until sort of end of season two, sort of beginning of season three, they figured out that Maddie and Doug were married in real life and everyone got very, very confused.
Yeah. So after, after being found. Sort of by Doug but comes back to Abby’s apartment to find that Maddie is packed and ready to go.
Ellen: [01:47:00] Yeah. He asked her if she’s leaving already. And she eventually sort of breaks down and tells him, like he says, “Are you in some kind of danger?” And she tells him how he’s it’s all the stuff that mom and dad hated about him and got worse and worse.
“And then I threatened to leave and he threatened to kill me and…” you know, she explains about how at the hospital she used to always think that people in abusive relationships were, you know, she judged them like, why don’t you just leave? But she gets it now. Like it’s hard. It’s hard to leave.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: But she did leave and Buck is proud of her and says that she should just stay here and just start over.
Bex: Buck tells her that he can protect her from Doug because he knows cops.
Ellen and Alice: He knows a lot of cops.
Bex: He knows a lot of cops. And he can help her find a, a nursing job at one of the hospitals. [01:48:00] But Maddie doesn’t want to work in a hospital because, She’s never going to know who’s walking in through the front door, she’s always going to be on edge.
So Buck’s slowly pondering this conundrum. Maddie wants to help people, but
Ellen: You can see wheels. Wheels are turning in his head
Bex: but you don’t want to have to deal with them face to face. He goes, yeah, I think I have an idea. And then we cut to Sue doing a tour of the 9-1-1 dispatch center as Maddie picks up the mantle of our voiceover. Taking the reins from Abby as she literally steps into Abby’s job as a 9-1-1 dispatcher.
Ellen: I assume she’ll be here for quite some time. Forever, in fact.
Bex: [01:49:00] So we get the a episode themed voiceover from Maddie, where she says that we all feel pressure, but it’s how we respond that matters. Pressure doesn’t have to break us down. It can show us who we really are. And that’s good. Because in the end, the pressure is always there, and eventually it has to be released.
And then we’ve got one, one final, one final scene to follow on from the release of that pressure that’s been building this whole episode. We’ve got Athena in her squad car, driving down the 710, there’s an (Aretha) Franklin song playing, which is just about being rock steady, which is incredibly ironic because all of a sudden, without any warning the road in front of Athena disappears, [01:50:00] just completely drops from sight as a massive earthquake hits LA.
Because as I said in the group chat, that rock ain’t so steady anymore.
Ellen: And she actually sees the car in front of her disappear into the chasm. But she’s on like an overpass. So it’s just like, when she gets out of the car and has a look, she’s standing on like a, a bit that’s still supported and the other, you know, the, the bit just in front of where her car was has broken away.
So yeah.
Bex: This poor freeway, everything, every bad thing that happens to LA seems to happen to this freeway.
Ellen: Is it always the 710?
Bex: It always seems to be the 710.
Alice: I think it’s always the same.
Bex: I think the 710 is massive. So I don’t think it’s like the same spot every single time. It just seems to be every time they’re called to a massive accident on a freeway, it’s the 710.
Ellen: [01:51:00] I mean, that’s, it’s probably just like the M1. Like, you know, there’s always accidents on the M1.
Bex: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so that’s why this was a two-parter episode, because then season two is sorry, episode two of season two is entitled “7.1” and is the aftermath of that earthquake that we got in the end of this episode.
Ellen: Yeah. So is this like the next big disaster episode coming up?
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: Excellent. I enjoyed the last one in a terrified kind of way.
Bex: This is the, the first of the, the season two disasters.
Ellen: Oh. Cool.
Bex: So the summary for next week’s episode, which is the second part is pretty much done. Just what I said, it’s [01:52:00] “When a massive earthquake rocks Los Angeles, the first responders rush to rescue victims from a crumbling high rise hotel, both under the rubble and high above the ground. Athena must deal with wreckage from a collapsed freeway overpass, and Maddie is thrown into the fire as she faces her first crisis as a 9-1-1 dispatcher.”
Ellen: Oh wow.
Bex: And our triggers are going to be, obviously, an earthquake. And all of the injuries and fatalities that go along with a massive earthquake. Multiple people at threat from said earthquake.
And the aftershocks. And then we’ve got pretty much a wannabe Harvey Weinstein. And his employee.
Ellen: Oh.
Alice: Yup.
Ellen: Yeah. I mean, I have to say that coming from somewhere that never gets earthquakes and having never experienced one, but seeing them on TV, they look absolutely terrifying. Like the ground is something that maybe you take for granted as being there all the time.
Bex: [01:53:00] Apparently not in Los Angeles. Yeah. Cause no. Do you get many at all up north, Ellen?
Ellen: No, never. No. Oh, occasionally there are some, like we have had them in Queensland, but they’re very small and you don’t even, it’s like that, that meme with like one chair falling over, like, that’s, that’s the worst.
Alice: “We will rebuild?” We we get like little tremors. We were actually talking about it the other day, cause it was Autumn’s puppy’s first birthday. And after they were born, we had a earthquake, like half an hour after the last one was born. And I was like, Oh, what did she just give birth to? But yeah, we, I live on like near a mountain range and the mountain ranges are moving.
And so we get just like little tremors, but we actually had a really big one. I feel like it was 2020 or 2021. That went for like ages. [01:54:00] And actually like I was working in like a shopping center at the time and it put cracks in our like shopping, like our parking garage.
Bex: Oh wow.
Alice: But yeah, like luckily I was at home that day because it was during COVID and like my whole bed was shaking.
My whole house was like moving. It must’ve been 2021 because I had Autumn and I was so glad that I was at home because she was being a puppy and I would have been stressed about her the whole time. But she just like woke up and barked at the door because the door was rattling and it sounded like someone was trying to get in.
It was so weird, but it went for like so long and it was one of the biggest ones that like we’ve had in ages. But yeah, we get a lot of like little ones because the mountain range is moving, which is interesting. Yeah.
Ellen: That’s interesting. I didn’t realize.
Alice: Cause it’s like, where are you going? You’re a mountain range.
Ellen: Yeah. Well, I mean, the earth moves around all the time. Just rather not think about it.
Anyway. All right. Well that’s the first episode. We’ve got like 23 episodes in this season, so it’s going to take us a while to get through this one, but you know, we do our best.
Alice: The deranged ramblings have only just begun.
Bex: Yes. Yes. Ellen, what is your impressions of one Eddie Diaz so far? And his interactions with one Evan Buckley.
Ellen: Yes. I was terribly distracted by his pretty eyelashes, as I said earlier and his propensity for slow-mo t-shirt shenanigans, but I’m looking forward to more of that, I guess. Yeah, no, I, I think that, I, I really do think that there are, there are definitely some acting choices going on here and [01:56:00] we also didn’t really learn anything about Eddie in this episode apart from a bit of military stuff, so, you know, I know there’s gonna be heaps more to come, but, you know, this, as an introductory episode, it was quite light on the Eddie front, really.
Alice: Yeah, the main thing we learned was that he doesn’t like to give much away.
Bex: Wear shirts?
Ellen: He doesn’t like to wear shirts.
Alice: And he’s really bad at putting on shirts. Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. But he also, I, I got the impression he doesn’t like to be in the spotlight much. Like he, he ducked away from questions and whatever quite a lot, so I don’t know. I’ll, I’ll happily watch some more to find out.
Alice: Excellent. Just have to keep watching. What a shame. Yep. Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Stay tuned next week to see if Eddie has worked out how to put a shirt on yet. Or any faster, anyway.
Ellen: I mean, judging by his actual introduction, I assume that there will be plenty more shirtless scenes going on. They have set him up for that.
Alice: [01:57:00] Oh, you have no idea. It’s Yep.
Ellen: I mean, I’m not complaining.
Bex: God, no. Nobody’s complaining.
Ellen: Oh dear. Thirsty women. Okay. So (laughs)
if you would like to tell us how much you love Eddie or anything else about this episode, You can definitely
Alice: just how long you take to put on a shirt…
Ellen: show, show Eddie, how you put on…no, actually don’t send us a picture. (laughs) We don’t need instruction. There you can get in touch with us on social media, or you can email us at contact at thatweewooshow.com and you can find us you can find all of our contact information and show notes and transcripts of our episodes at thatweewoshow.com.
Thank you very much for listening to this episode. [01:58:00] And we will talk to you again when we, next time where we talk about the episode confusingly called “7.1”. 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.
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