Welcome to That Weewoo Show: a podcast where Alice, Bex, and Ellen watch and discuss every episode of ABC’s TV show, 9-1-1.
In this episode we discuss episode 14 of the second season of 9-1-1, titled “Broken”.
The call center must turn to old school tactics after being hit with a massive system-wide power outage; The first responders deal with explosions in multiple homes and a difficult child birth.
Content warnings for episode 2.14:
Children at threat, gas leak and an explosion, house fires, complications with labor and childbirth, death of a patient (temporary).
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Our intro music is “Tensions” by Northern Points.
Episode Transcript
Maddie: [00:00:00] 9-1-1, what’s your emergency?
Bex: 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: Big thanks to everyone who has listened to our episodes so far and rated and reviewed us and shared our social media posts and done pretty much everything they could to spread the word about our little podcast.
We appreciate you. Special shout out this week to Lucia from the Totally Normal About That Podcast, who in response to our episode on “Chimney Begins” a few weeks ago gave us a A lesson on the history of 9/ 11 monuments around the country and around the world too, I think. Um, so if you too had questions [00:01:00] about how a big chunk of the World Trade Center ended up in Los Angeles, I would highly recommend heading to our Twitter page where we have retweeted Lucia’s thread.
Ellen: I saw that. Thank you, Lucia. That was great.
Alice: Thanks Lucia. Yeah.
Bex: We really do appreciate when our American listeners sort of chime in and answer our questions about all the American stuff that we just have no idea about. Um, so if you ever hear us go, “if you’re a resident of Los Angeles, or if you live in America,” please, and you know the answer to our question or have some information that can help, um, us figure out what is going on on the screen, please reach out to us.
There are so many different ways that you can get in touch with us and we do love to hear from you.
Ellen: I just, I just envision like listeners, like listening to us make up some theory on why something is the way it is and just shaking their heads and going, “You guys, like, No.”
Bex: They’re listening to me scream about something and they’re [00:02:00] screaming at their phone going, but that’s not it!
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ellen: Yes. Please, please educate us. We’d love to be put set straight.
Alice: Yes. I had a full conversation with some Americans during the week about the time zones because I was like, I don’t understand your time zones and they’re like, here, let us educate you. And I’m like, thank you.
Ellen: Alternatively, if you want to know anything about Australian stuff, then like hit us up, we’ll let you know.
Alice: Yeah. Yeah. Did you know that kangaroos can’t jump back? I can’t. Um, walk or jump backwards.
Ellen: Well, they’ve got a tail in the way.
Alice: It’s the way that their legs, legs go. But sure.
Bex: We need to get some kind of Australian crossover on the show so that we can suddenly know stuff.
Alice: Also, um, echidnas and platypus lay eggs, but also produce milk.
Ellen: Either that or we all just need to go on a road trip to LA so we can like, you know, do some research.
Alice: I think so. Do you reckon we can write that off as a tax break?
Ellen: No, because we don’t actually make any money out of this.
Alice: Oh yeah, damn.
Bex: So if we suddenly start launching a [00:03:00] Patreon, you know why.
Alice: It’s just so we can go to Disneyland. I mean, um, yeah, it’s research guys. Research. Yeah, that’s right.
Ellen: Anyway, what happened last week on 9-1-1?
Alice: Um, so last week on 9-1-1, we wrapped up the Doug arc after he stabbed Chimney and kidnapped Maddie.
After the longest two hour drive ever, a showdown between Maddie and Doug ended with Doug dead and Maddie safe and sound with Buck.
Ellen: Yay! That’s right.
Alice: It was a bit of a heavy one last week, but um, but they all ended up alive, which is always a good thing.
Bex: And Maddie and Chimney had their first kiss.
Alice: Aw, they did too.
Ellen: Well, this week, things are slightly lighter. Still, this episode is quite frantic. Like, a lot of stuff happens in it, but it’s not quite so heavy subject material. So, this is episode [00:04:00] 14 of season 2, which is called “Broken”. Um, it first aired on the 15th of April in 2019. The official summary just says when Metro LA’s 9-1-1 system is hit with a massive system wide power outage, the call centre must go old school in responding to emergencies.
The first responders must deal with explosions in multiple homes and difficult childbirth. Meanwhile, Michael confronts Bobby about parenting his kids.
So our triggers for this episode, uh, in case you want a heads up on what’s coming, we have children at threat, a gas leak and an explosion, um, house fires, a woman has complications with her, um, labor and delivery and childbirth, and, and the death of a patient as well.
Alice: Technically.
Ellen: Like temporarily.
Alice: Temporary.
Ellen: Temporary major character death. Minor character death. Temporary.
Bex: Yes. So this episode was written [00:05:00] by Juan Carlos Coto, who previously wrote “Dosed”, and, I like this guy’s style.
Alice: Yeah, me too. He does the ensemble well, um, he, like, has the tension, but also the humour, which we all love in 9-1-1
Ellen: Yeah, I don’t, it’s possibly not, I’m trying to remember what “Dosed” was like.
We had the funny parts of it, but we also had like a really serious kind of stuff as well.
Alice: Yeah, like Bobby tried to jump off the roof. Yeah. But also we had Eddie crying because he was getting arrested.
Ellen: Yes, that’s right.
Alice: We’re everywhere, man.
Ellen: Well, we’re starting out in, uh, you know, utopic suburbia. Um, birds are chirping. We have. A car pulls into like a, a cul de sac type situation where there’s a house, they’re pulling a trailer that’s got like all their stuff in it, basically. [00:06:00]
Alice: Can we talk quickly? I know we’ve just started the episode, but we’re already,
Bex: we’re tangenting already
Alice: we’re tangenting. Yeah. Yeah. American houses are fucking huge.
Bex: Yes, they are.
Alice: Like, this is literally a family of three. So we’ve got a dad and two kids, and the house is absolutely massive. Like, it’s two story and it’s huge.
Bex: To be fair, when they purchased the house, that was a family of four.
Alice: Yeah, true. But like, yeah, it’s huge.
Bex: But yes, their houses are disproportionately large.
Alice: Like, I feel like all the houses in Australia now are just units, and they’re just like, yeah, your family of eight have to fit in three bedrooms, good luck. And we’re like, okay, cool, thanks, sorry.
Ellen: Yeah, maybe it’s just the bits of Melbourne that you’re used to, but the houses around the newer estates on the outside, or Brisbane at least, they’re all quite large, but they’re very close together.
So, I don’t know, this must, this could be an older suburb in LA, who knows. I don’t [00:07:00] think that, um, I think LA, you know, the real estate market probably suffering from what the rest of the, the, the world is and is massively inflated. So maybe nowadays a three person family wouldn’t be able, like a single dad wouldn’t be able to afford a house that size in LA.
Bex: It does look quite out from the suburbs too. So it must be, I would say possibly a newer estate. Yeah. There seems to be a lot more room for growth.
Alice: Yeah. Like a house that size in like Melbourne would easily be like two, three million dollars.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Like, even in the, like, outskirts.
Ellen: Anyway, maybe this dad is, like, you know, rich. I don’t know. Who knows?
Bex: Yeah, he’s invested well in Bitcoin.
Ellen: Yeah. Maybe he’s got some cash for buying houses. Who knows? But anyway, apparently they have their entire belongings in a small kind of trailer.
Alice: And all their open boxes.
Bex: Who the hell packs a U Haul by, Oh, [00:08:00] I’m going to put all my belongings, not wrapped, I’m literally just going to put all of my belongings in a box.
And then I’m not even going to seal the box or put any kind of paper in it. I’m just going to place the box into the trailer.
Ellen: Yeah. And it’s not, it’s not that full either. Like how, where, where have they moved from a shoe box? Like there’s hardly anything. Anyway.
Alice: Yeah, literally…, As someone who just moved yesterday, um, I did have three.
Three boxes that weren’t like taped at the top, but they were the ones that were in my car. Um, and like I was unpacking the second I got back.
Ellen: I mean, I can only assume that there is, there must be a truck coming.
Bex: Yeah. Right. We give them the benefit of the doubt and say that, that there has to be a truck coming.
Yeah. That this is like the things that they needed desperately for that first day. And the, the rest of their furniture and shit is coming in the next couple of days
Ellen: because I mean, they, you can’t fit a bed in that thing. And there are three of them. So, yes, anyway, let’s, let’s give them
Bex: back on track.
Ellen: It’s going to be a long [00:09:00] episode. I can tell.
Alice: Like it’s, it’s just real life. Like I just moved yesterday. These people are moving. It’s so exciting.
Ellen: I hope your new house didn’t blow up though.
Alice: They have boxes. I have boxes. So relatable. You guys, so relatable. Yeah, so we get a exposition shot where, um, dad takes an unwrapped photo out of an open box and we see that it used to be a family of four, but mum has died.
She’s wearing a like bandana on her head. So it looks like she had cancer. Um, they do mention later that, she was in remission when, when they bought the house. Yeah. Um, so clearly like she’s passed pretty quickly, uh, cause it was mum’s dream house.
Bex: Yep. Uh, the, the son, the young boy, Alex, has raced into the house [00:10:00] to investigate his bedroom.
Um, and this is important because while he is inside the house and his father and his older sister are having like touching moments out in the street, Um, Ball, uh, big flames start shooting up, uh, randomly in the background.
Ellen: There’s like an explosion behind them in the street.
Bex: Yeah, it just, it comes out of nowhere.
And then another house explodes. And then a car comes screaming into the cul de sac and smacks into the fire hydrant, sending water going everywhere. And then mum’s dream house, the bottom floor, just explodes. Yeah. And everything’s exploding. There’s fire everywhere. And the dad is obviously panicking because his son is in the upstairs of this exploding house, but he keeps his cool a little bit.
He pulls out his phone. He calls 9-1-1. And if this was a normal episode, you would expect that we would cut to that little squiggly line on the back screen. We’d be [00:11:00] hearing the 9-1-1 dispatcher. Instead, we get that weird three-tone that tells you that the call has not been connected. And he gets a recording that says, “You have reached a number that is not in service. If you feel you’ve reached this message in error, please check the number and try again.”
And the dad goes, “Check the number? It’s 9-1-1, how do I get that number wrong?”
Alice: Three numbers. Um, yeah, so 9-1-1 have forgotten to pay their phone bill. Uh,
but yeah, how terrifying would this actually be though? Yeah.
Bex: You call 9-1-1 and 9-1-1’s not there, it’s fucking terrifying. Yeah.
Alice: Like, or triple zero in our case, yeah. And they’re just like, no. No.
Bex: Computer said no. Yeah. You will not be getting help.
Alice: Yep. Because, yeah, you know, you’re told from when you’re a young child, if you’re in danger, call, in our case, triple zero, in their case, 9-1-1.
Yeah, but yeah, so that’d be terrifying. So then we go to [00:12:00] our title card, and we get a caption, which is five hours earlier. So we’re doing typical 9-1-1 timey wimey, um, stuff.
Bex: But at least they’re telling us this time. But
Alice: yeah, we’re actually getting like a caption, clearly someone else has been like, what fucking time
Bex: the time, like the timeline actually makes sense in this episode.
Alice: It does, yeah. It’s really well paced. So
Bex: of all of the things in this episode, they get the time right. Everything else is like completely fucked up, but the time works.
Ellen: Yeah, they don’t jump around too much. It’s just Well, they jump around between, between locations, I guess. But the time is
Bex: But not within time.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah. Time is right. It’s linear. Yes. Um, so Buck and Maddie are meeting up at the same time as Hen and, and Jim. So but they’re having
Bex: Jim?
Ellen: a similar conversation. Yeah. Yeah. So they switch back and forth, which I don’t
Alice: I love the conversation with Maddie and Buck. I love it so much.
Ellen: Yeah, I do too. [00:13:00]
Alice: Um, so Buck’s like showing Maddie pictures of apartments and he’s like, oh yeah, like this one, blah, blah, blah.
And Maddie’s like, “Yeah, nice, you should totally rent that apartment.”
Bex: Yeah.
Alice: And Buck’s like, “Me? Why would I?” And Maddie’s like, “Because I have my own apartment. You sleep in my dining room.”
Ellen: It’s like, why the hell do you think, Buck?
Alice: Like, Buck, you have no house.
Ellen: You’re couchsurfing, remember? You have no house.
Alice: As in, he’s like, “Oh, you don’t think it’s weird?”
And Maddie goes, “Yes, that’s why you should get your own place,” like, get out of my dining room. Um, but they’re actually talking about the fact that, uh, Maddie was kidnapped and Chim was stabbed from Maddie’s apartment. Yeah. Yes. But yes, it’s also weird that Buck lives in Maddie’s dining room and is trying to find an apartment for them.
And Maddie’s like, get the fuck out of my house.
Bex: Maddie acknowledges that it’s a little bit weird. She says, “it’s a little bit weird to go back to my apartment, but I’m not going to force myself out of it because…” and then Chim picks up the thread of her [00:14:00] sentence and says, “I got stabbed.”
Alice: They’re finishing each other’s sentences already. Even when they’re not in the same room.
Ellen: It’s so cute. But at the same time, I find it really annoying when they do this and like cut back and forth when they’re having this same conversation. I don’t know why I just
Bex: No, no, see I love this. I was actually thinking after I’ve just finished watching the opening three season arc of Season 8, and I was thinking to myself that I missed episodes like, Stuck, where they had this cutting back and forth between the ensemble.
Alice: Um, and
Bex: then watch this episode and go, Yes! This is what I missed! I like this!
Alice: There’s stuff from the earlier seasons that I do, like, I definitely miss, but, God, Season 8 ended so, I mean, started so well.
Bex: But we’re not talking about that.
Alice: We’re not talking about that right now. We’re talking about Chim, who is quoting movies again.
Bex: Yes, he’s sitting on the, [00:15:00] uh, couch folding his clothes very particularly while Hen is watching on.
Ellen: He says he got, he, he got stabbed and it totally sucked. “But then I remembered something a wise man once said. ‘Life moves pretty fast if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.’”
Apparently this is from Ferris Bueller’s day off, I didn’t know that until Hen says, “the wise men of history, Aristotle, Solomon, Bueller.”
Bex: So Chim says, uh, tells Hen not to mock him. And Ferris Bueller only had one day off. He’s got weeks of free time and he’s determined to make the most of them. Last time he almost died, like when he got the rebar through his head, he didn’t have to have any fun at all. Um, and Hen asks him, “Oh, is that why you’re turning all of your clothes into index cards?”
Alice: Not all of them.
Ellen: This is so funny. Cause he’s doing this Marie Kondo thing, which is like, was at the time. the height [00:16:00] of its popularity in 2019. And the thing that I, like, this is when you think about if something sparks joy and you get rid of it if you don’t, if it doesn’t. But the thing that I find really funny with this now is that Marie Kondo then went on and had kids in like during 2020 or 2021.
And then she acknowledged publicly that her system didn’t work that well when you have children. And I’m like, thank you. That’s what we’ve been thinking for some time.
Alice: But the best part is like, she got really popular. Like, it’s funny watching this in hindsight, cause she got really popular just before COVID.
Yeah. And then obviously COVID happened. So everyone was like, yeah, we’re going to clear out all our shit. And then it was like, now we have no shit and we’re bored. Cause. We’ve got a lot longer than we expected.
Ellen: We have a clean house though.
Alice: But yeah, so Chim’s like holding up this like shirt to himself and Hen’s like, “what are you doing?”
And Chim says he’s trying to just [00:17:00] determine if this shirt sparks joy. “And I did, and it doesn’t. So now I thank the shirt. Thank you,” and he puts it aside into a pile rather than folding it and then it’s just like, you need therapy.
Ellen: It’s true, he does.
Bex: But then they cut back to the diner and Maddie picks up the conversation and says that yes, I will still see my therapist.
She will still go to her support group, but she has to start putting her life back together. So it sounds like she is trying to move forward with her life. She must be about to head back to 9-1-1 dispatch, um, whereas Buck is a little bit worried that she’s moving too fast. But Maddie’s, uh, idea is that once her life is back to normal, she will start to feel normal again.
Ellen: That’s, that’s a good theory.
Bex: Which Hen is kind of thinking that’s bullshit as well, because she tells Chimney [00:18:00] that, um, you both almost died and now you’re just gonna prance over to her place and pick her up for dinner like it never happened, like they’re just going on with their lives. But I do like Chim’s response, he’s like, “No, I’m not gonna prance over to her place and pick her up, Maddie is coming over here to pick me up because she is a modern woman.”
And also he’s pretty sure they couldn’t get the bloodstains off the brick. And I don’t want to go back there.
Alice: And then the cu oh my god, I love this so much. So then Hen goes, “So I guess Maddie still sparks joy?” And Chim goes, “Always.” I love Madney so much, like, so much.
Ellen: They’re adorable.
Alice: Like, obviously Buddy is my number one, but Madni is very, very closely behind.
I love them so much.
Bex: They are so cute. So we’re setting up that they are going to go on their second first date, trying [00:19:00] to finish the date that they never got to before Doug interfered.
Ellen: All right. So later. So now we’re going to the firehouse and it’s a few hours later, they’re on shift. Eddie and Buck are there in their all their gear.
And Bobby is giving a speech about ” All you need is three numbers. Can you tell me what they are?” And then there’s all these kids there and they all say “9-1-1.” And he gives them a little spiel about how, you know, you ring the number and then they automatically find where the nearest fire station is and dispatching what you need.
It’s very sophisticated system.
Bex: It’s very cute because apparently it’s Harry’s class. Yeah. Um, and he is, he is fully participating in this presentation because when [00:20:00] Bobby asks, “What, what happens when you call 9-1-1?” Harry’s hand immediately shoots up and they go, and they call a fire truck. Um, Bobby continues to involve Harry in the presentation.
He says, “Alright, let’s say, Harry, you call in an emergency. Can you name one?” Harry said, uh, “The library sets on fire and it burns all our homework.”
Alice: Not the homework!
Bex: So, Bobby goes through, “Okay, so this is what’s going to happen. We’re going to call 9-1-1. Um, dispatch is going to type in the address of Meadowbrook school.
They’re going to find the nearest station,” and then the alarm starts to ring in the station house and we get, um, one of the randos from the 118 slides down the pole.
Alice: I know, they gave an extra something to do. I was so excited. I was like, oh look, someone got to touch the pole.
Bex: And then Hen’s up in the kitchen with a megaphone going, “Station 118, station 118, please dispatch an engine and an ambulance to Meadowbrook school library. Harry Grant didn’t do his homework.” [00:21:00] And what I love at the background in the back of, um, the station, you’ve got Michael, who has obviously accompanied the class to the station, um, as parent help. But Athena has dropped by as well, and they’re listening to this. And Athena sort of makes a comment to Michael, going, “Oh, so much for playing it cool.”
And Michael’s like, “what are you talking about?” And Athena “Harry, he didn’t want the other kids thinking he had the inside tractors because he knew the captain.” And Michael scoffs and goes, “well, that went out the window as soon as he went through the door.”
Ellen: Yeah, all of a sudden, he knew more than anybody else did. So he was going to let everyone know that.
Bex: Yes. So after the speech, Bobby releases the children to Buck and Eddie’s care to clamber all over the engines. And Buck is literally bouncing.
Alice: Oh my God, Buck is such a puppy.
Bex: As he collects his kids and takes them into a truck.
Alice: He’s so cute, he’s like, kids, kids, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.
It’s like, Buck, calm down. He’s, [00:22:00] he’s actually a puppy. I love him so much.
Bex: And he’s so good with them.
Alice: It’s so funny. Like when you watch like Oliver and then watch Buck,
Bex: Oh, they’re completely different people.
Alice: Look, Oliver’s just like, I fucking hate everyone, like, everyone can get fucked. And Buck’s just like, yay!
Bex: Sunshine and lollipops and rainbows.
Alice: It’s called acting, guys, acting.
Ellen: He’s a method actor, after all.
Oh no, that’s Bobby, he’s a method actor.
Alice: Yes. What, are you saying that, um, Peter burnt down an apartment in Minnesota?
Ellen: Maybe not that far for his craft, but you know. He comes to say hello to Michael and Athena and he says, Are you, he says to Athena, “Are you on your lunch break or do you just love TED Talks for 10 year olds?”
And Athena’s like, “Tickets are harder to [00:23:00] get than Hamilton.”
Bex: It’s like, oh my God, the pop culture references,
Ellen: They’re bringing in all the 2019 things.
Bex: They are so, they’re so heavy in this episode. Ages this episode so much.
Ellen: Yeah, I was going to say, this is so five years ago.
Alice: Like Hamilton tickets are so easy now, you guys.
Ellen: Yeah. I mean, they’re coming to my city later in the, like, beginning of next year, I think.
Alice: Again? Weren’t they already there? So
Ellen: No, they’re in Sydney.
Bex: No, they’ve only done Melbourne and Sydney.
Ellen: Yeah, they were in Sydney.
Alice: Oh, there you go.
Ellen: They haven’t been to Brisbane yet.
Bex: Are you going to go see it? You should go and see it. If it’s the same cast as the first run, they are amazing.
Ellen: Right.
Alice: Is it bad that I still haven’t watched it?
Ellen: It’s worth watching. It’s on Disney, right? You can watch, like, I watched it, um. And I enjoyed it and I do like the music. It’s very cool. But, um, I don’t know, the tickets are very expensive.
Bex: I dare say, if it’s still, if it’s still Jason as, um, Hamilton, he is a better [00:24:00] Hamilton than Lin Manuel Miranda.
Ellen: Oh, wow.
Bex: I mean, it’s not hard, but he is a much better Hamilton. Okay.
Alice: Anyway, so, um, Athena. Yeah, Athena kisses Bobby goodbye, and then we cut to Harry talking to, some kid from his class.
Bex: We do find out his name is Kyle, so, well, we’re assuming that this is Kyle, because it’s the only other kid we see Harry interacting with.
Alice: Yeah, Harry’s only got one friend.
Bex: We’ll just assume this is Kyle. And Kyle is incredibly impressed that Harry’s new dad is the fire captain, and he thinks that’s so cool.
Alice: Yeah, and Harry calls him pretty badass, but not just with fires and stuff. Like during the earthquake, he saved like hundreds of people, whereas all Harry did was hand out bottled water.
Bex: And unfortunately, Michael walked up [00:25:00] behind Harry just as he said this, and he heard it, and he looks. absolutely devastated.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Which, I mean, we already knew that Michael is slightly insecure about his parenting, so this is really going to hit him hard. We are back at a dispatch headquarters. Maddie is back for her first day of work and she is handling it like a boss.
She has taken multiple calls and she is knocking them out. She’s very calm. She’s very professional. She’s doing a great job.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Um, and her phone buzzes and it’s a text from Chimney saying, I hope you’re having a great first day back. And while, as she’s typing a response, Josh kind of rolls on his wheely chair across the floor to her station, um, because he’s checking in on her.
Alice: He literally just says, “I’m checking in on you.”[00:26:00]
Ellen: She’s like, I’m fine. Go away.
Alice: Everyone’s checking in on her.
Bex: Another text comes through from Chimney saying, “Are we still on for tonight?” Maddie says, “Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. Smiling emoji.” Um, And Maddie tells Josh that they’re going to finish what they started. Josh’s face is like, Excuse me? So she clarifies the, the first date that they never had.
And Josh just says, “Well, I hope you’ve got a good plan for the man that almost died for you.” Which, like Really, Josh?
Ellen: Yeah. Like, can’t be. Harsh.
Bex: Like, yeah. No pressure.
He says he will think of some recommendations while he’s saving lives and then just rolls back to his station. I love Josh. He’s so sassy.
Alice: I love Josh so much.
Bex: So Maddie goes back to taking calls and she is about to dispatch an RA unit to a guy who crashed his truck, um, and broke his ankle somewhere near the PCH when the call drops and all of a sudden the screens just black [00:27:00] out. And then she looks around and the entire floor, all of their computers, are just dead.
And it turns out it is a level three outage, Sue tells us later. Uh, they have power, but that fancy computer system that Bobby was explaining to the kids is down.
Alice: Yeah, thank you, Bobby, for explaining it to the kids so that we also understood what it was. Appreciate it.
Bex: It was, it was a really good. It was exposition without being knocked over the head with exposition, like it made sense that he would be explaining to the kids and it’s only now that we get into this part of the episode they’re like, oh, they was explaining it to us too.
Alice: Yeah, I really like when they do exposition like that, rather than the normal exposition where they’re just like, oh, we’ll just get Buck to explain it.
Bex: We’re going to make Buck ask questions to prompt somebody else to explain it to us like we’re fine. No, they did it organically.
Alice: Hey Maddie, how do you know what station to send where?
Oh, [00:28:00] well, we’ve got this system called CAD.
Bex: Well, they don’t at the moment. And the funny thing is that they also said that because, um, the phones run through CAD, they don’t have phones. So somebody wheels this trolley out with these old analog phones that they’re going to have to plug in to be able to talk to people.
And then they also get walkie talkies so that they can get on the radio with all of the stations.
Alice: Yep. So there must be like a different number.
Ellen: Yeah, they, they were gonna, they read it out on the news, you know, when, later when Chim’s watching the news and they say. 9-1-1 is down. Here are the numbers.
Here’s the alternative number.
Bex: I think they must, they must get 9-1-1 kind of up and running, but because the, the phones can’t, those phones, it’s like, if somebody’s on that phone, you can’t, you can’t redirect it to another person. So you, [00:29:00] because they do, later in the episode, Linda starts taking calls. So you must still be able to call 9-1-1, it’s just, it’s hit and miss whether you’re actually going to get through to somebody while they’re on the, the old phones.
Ellen: Yeah, I mean, I assume this is all a protocol for, like, surely they would have a backup system when things actually go wrong, because hopefully it doesn’t happen that much, but if they, if it does, they need to have a,
Alice: like, because the scene later, the guy calls 9-1-1, and it’s down, so he calls a different number and gets through.
So there must be like a local number as well.
Bex: I thought he just tried 9-1-1 again.
Alice: I don’t think so, I think he tries a different one.
Bex: Anyway, so while the dispatch centre is going old school, these stations have all been put on alert and they are going into tactical emergency mode, which means that they’re not just going to sit in the station and wait to get dispatched.
They’re going to be driving around LA to make sure that they’re ready for anything that comes their way. And Hen kind of calls Bobby on that because that’s the [00:30:00] exposition for us, the audience.
Ellen: I love that she said this.
Bex: She answers like, “You do realize we work here, right? We’re trained professionals, not fifth graders.”
And then we cut to Josh, who is explaining to the, uh, 9-1-1 dispatchers about maps, like they are the greatest.
Alice: “This is a street atlas.” “Maps on paper, people. They still make them.” I love it so much. Um, and yeah, we find out that, They’ve, like, they literally just use bits of paper, um, to write down the emergencies.
So normally they, like, put it in a computer system to log it. They literally just have pieces of paper. So if they need fire, they grab a red piece of paper. If they need police, they grab white, and then medical is yellow.
They also don’t have, like, blinking lights or anything. They have to get cross streets. They have to get landmarks. [00:31:00] Um, if you’re unfamiliar with where they’re calling, look it up.
Ellen: I mean, I’ve got to say that Sue and Josh are on this. They’re like, upbeat, they know exactly what’s going on, no one looks like they’re panicking.
Bex: Well, like Sue said, this, she was a 9-1-1 dispatcher back before they had CAD.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: So she knows how to do this.
Ellen: I mean, going back to old ways, after you’ve been using a shiny new system, is pretty hard.
Alice: It is. So I’ve been in retail and like, one of the stores that I worked at, um, used to get power outages all the time and it was an old company. And so we’d have, we had the backup, literally you’d write an invoice on a piece of paper and then manually like put in the card and like, it was a whole thing.
Every time we had like an outage of any, like of that type, it was the best day because it was something different. Like it wasn’t just the same thing. Like it was just like, Oh my God. Yes. Like we get to do something different. And I feel like that’s what Josh is like right now. [00:32:00] Like, even though they literally deal with emergencies all day, he’s just like, “Oh my God, we get to use the maps. We get to use paper. We get to do the things. And like, Oh my God.”
Bex: We do get a line from Hen though, that. Um, she’s been through three outages of 9-1-1, so they must not be completely unfamiliar with the process.
Alice: That’s it. Like, so yeah, Josh has clearly done it before. Um, like I, as I said, I did it like five times or something, um, just in the one store that I was in for two years.
cause like the server went down at one stage and we were just like, okay, cool. We’re doing it manually. And, um, Yeah, so, but like, I was the only one that, like, knew how to do it manually half the time, so I’d be there, like, running the floor, and so yeah, it’s a lot of fun. But yeah, so yeah, um, Buck asks Bobby if he’d ever seen it like that before, and Bobby says he’s only seen it once, so it hasn’t happened recently.
Bex: Well, that one, it happened back in St. Paul, Minnesota, because the snow [00:33:00] took out the generator. Whereas Hen has lived through it in Los Angeles three times, which she said is because she’s surprised that it doesn’t happen more often because the whole of LAFD is held together with chewing gum and spit.
Alice: And Buck says, come on, I like these old trucks, which is, unfortunately,
Bex: yeah, like, no, Buck.
Alice: Eddie just says he likes them when they run.
Ellen: Eddie, you’ve been here for two minutes.
Alice: Which it reminded me of when he was like, “yeah, I like this kid.” like, like he doesn’t like kids, but he likes Chris. He likes Chris.
He doesn’t like trucks except when they run. And he’s just very negative about everything, clearly.
Bex: The general gist of this is that they are still going to be operating. They’re going to be fine.
Alice: Yeah. It’s going to be chaos. Um, like call out errors, correct mistakes. But Sue says they did it this way for 20 [00:34:00] years and they’ll do it again today.
Bex: So then I do love that, um, they’re dealing with the chaos. Chim is still in his apartment Marie Kondo ing his clothes and breaking news comes in to alert everybody that there is an outage with 9-1-1 and Chim just looks annoyed because they’ve interrupted his show with this breaking news.
Alice: It’s like, Chimney, you were a first responder. You should care more and he’s just like, oh, fuck it, whatever. I mean,
Ellen: How many clothes has he got that the Hen’s, like, left his place and gone to work? And he’s still folding his clothes.
Bex: He’s still going. I mean, it takes a while if you’ve got to pick up like every pair of underpants and decide whether they spark joy or not.
Every pair of socks.
Alice: Again, I just moved yesterday. I haven’t even touched my clothes yet. I brought like socks and undies and two t shirts with me and I’m just like, oh, can I just burn the old house down now? Yes. Clothes are the worst.
Ellen: Yes.
Bex: Um, so the, [00:35:00] the anchor tells Chimney and all of the viewers that The 9-1-1 dispatch, um, are reporting that only 30 percent of calls are actually going to make it through.
So only call 9-1-1 if it’s a life threatening emergency. And Chimney just kind of sits back on his couch and goes, okay, this might be a better show than what I was just watching.
Alice: They also mentioned that they’re monitoring social media and urging you to use the hashtag 9-1-1 LA, which made me laugh a bit.
But then like, We do actually see later in the series that they literally have people monitoring social media, like that’s the job.
Bex: Can you imagine, like, you’re getting robbed or something. So you’re frantically tweeting at 9-1-1?
Alice: Getting robbed, like peace sign, hashtag 9-1-1 L. A.
Bex: So then we’re going to get a little bit of a montage of everyone responding in this [00:36:00] new state of affairs. And I have, The music supervisor needs to be taken out back and shot, or given a medal, I’m not sure which, because they decided to use R. E. M. ‘s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It”, which, you know, it’s fitting, but the first lyric in that song is, it’s, “that’s great, it starts with an earthquake.”
Ellen: They were just waiting for the opportunity to use this song.
Alice: They were just like, what do you mean I can’t use it for episode one, two, or three of season two? Well, that’s fine. I’ll just sneak it in later.
Ellen: It’s definitely going in later.
Bex: They’ve reported to the music department that, you know, the first episodes of season two is going to be an earthquake and someone’s just gone, “Yes, R. E. M., here we come.”
Ellen: The only trouble with using this song, like it’s fine when they’re montaging and like showing all the trucks driving around and stuff, but the, because the [00:37:00] lyrics are so fast and like, I guess there’s a lot of them in a short time, um, when they actually start having dialogue again, it’s really distracting.
Like Athena is like at a crash, but like a car crash, but a different team are already there when Bobby and his crew turn up. So they have to leave again. You know, it’s like chaos going on.
Alice: Yeah. They almost get taken out at an intersection by a different ladder truck And Bobby’s just like, Whoa, cause like, they literally almost get hit by it.
And then Bobby’s just like, “Hey, like the 122 are already here.” And Maddie’s like, “Oh, sorry. I sent the 122.” And I’m just like, Maddie knows other, like, she knows other stations besides the 118?
Bex: The 122 probably reported that they were closer to that area. But that me, that prompts Josh to pull three dispatchers off the phones and they are now responsible for out.
Um, eavesdropping on every other call and making sure that [00:38:00] only one call ends up on the board. Because obviously back when they had CAD, you could have 50 people call in about an accident and they would be, the dispatchers would be able to say, yes, we’ve already had that reported. But when you don’t have CAD, you could have 50 different people trying to dispatch units to one incident because you don’t realize that it’s already been picked up.
So they’re trying to, to cover that off. But while that is happening, three people walk onto the, the call center floor and they just, I’m calling them the nerd squad because you look at them and they are just, they are the stereotypical nerds. Like the woman is, has got like the thick, glasses and she’s like the school teacher kind of, the sexy school teacher look.
Alice: Like they couldn’t get Felicia Day for this role because she was busy, so they’re just like, fuck like someone else that looks super nerdy.
Ellen: I, I hate these guys. [00:39:00] Just the way they talk and then, ugh.
Bex: Oh yeah, they’re, they’re so, so apparently, um, they are FBI agents. Who have been sent down to the 9-1-1 center in case the power outage is the result of being hacked.
So one of them is a data breach expert. Um, the, the woman Nina is a critical infrastructure specialist and their spokesperson Devin is a specialist in cyber terrorism.
Alice: So yeah, apparently in 2016 a single web address went viral on Twitter. And when people clicked on it, their phone started speed dialing 9-1-1.
Um, there was also an attack in Atlanta the previous year, which was traced back to Russian hackers. And the city spent 2. 6 million trying to unlock their systems rather than pay the ransom, which was 50, 000.
Bex: Yeah, but it was 50, 000 in Bitcoin.
Alice: Yeah, true. [00:40:00]
Bex: So Devin and Anders and Nina have been dispatched by the FBI to hope that when they do get the ransom demand from whoever it is hacked the system, they will be ready.
Yeah. So while the nerd squad is working, we’re going to move on to a medical emergency. We have, uh, We don’t get their names till later, but I’m just gonna use their names now because it’s gonna make it so much easier. We have Roger and Sonia who arrive out of the elevator of their high rise apartment where Sonia is very clearly in labor.
And they are heading to the hospital.
Ellen: Yeah, and the dad to be is doing that sterotypical thing where he’s like, “Is it bad? I hope it’s not bad.” She’s like, “It’s bad.”
Alice: She says “On a scale from 1 to 10, it’s about a 40.” But the thing is, like, she’s still walking and talking, which means it’s not [00:41:00] a 40 because 10 is supposed to be like, you can’t like exist with the pain. So like, calm down, mate.
Ellen: Um. I mean, it’s, it’s pretty fricking bad. Like when you
Bex: It is pretty fricking bad. And I will say she’s not walking very well. She is leaning quite heavily on Roger and she is moaning and groaning and does not look at all comfortable.
Ellen: And then she, like, as soon as her water breaks, like she gets a, a gush of liquid and she basically lies down on the ground. So, you know, it’s happening. It’s happening.
Bex: Which, I mean, come on guys. I’m sure we’ve discussed this in the last time we had childbirth on this show, but water breaking does not mean immediate delivery.
Ellen: No.
Bex: There is a, there is sometimes, there is quite a, a gap between your water breaking and, you know, being in active labor and the child crowning, so.
Ellen: I mean, there are no other children around, and so we assume this is [00:42:00] her first, in which case it probably is definitely not going to take a few minutes for, to get to active labor.
Bex: Yes,
Ellen: but, um,
Bex: but this is TV delivery, which means it’s going to happen very, very quickly.
Alice: Immediately.
Bex: Sonia, um, decides, no, my water is broken. I’m going to lay down. I’m going to have this baby right here in the lobby. I’m not even going to try and get in the Uber to get to the hospital and demands that Roger call 9-1-1
Ellen: That Uber driver’s like, she ain’t getting in my Uber.
Bex: I don’t get paid enough to try and get amniotic fluid out of my car seats.
Alice: It’s fine. Uber charge an extra cleaning service. It’s all good.
Bex: But when Roger calls, um, he gets the automated, “you’ve reached a number that is not in service” message.
Alice: Yep. Um, and he’s like, how is 9-1-1 not in service?
Bex: But, as we mentioned earlier, he either tries again or he somehow manages to call a different number, which I don’t know how he [00:43:00] would have known because he has obviously not been watching the news.
It doesn’t matter.
Ellen: Yeah, someone, maybe someone else suggested to them, like we, do we actually see him speaking to somebody about it? No. We just go straight back to dispatch.
Bex: We go from, how is 9-1-1 not in service? And then we cut to Linda taking the call. And actually we cut to Linda dispatching Engine and Rescue 118 to 550 San Vicente, uh, which you’ve been, if you’ve been paying attention to the show, you know that that is going to be a problem.
Ellen: Oh, we’ve had this before?
Bex: And she tells
Alice: Yeah, because there are multiple San Vicentes.
Bex: Um, yeah, so in Maddie’s very first day, which was during the earthquake episode, she started freaking out because she was trying to dispatch police to Wiltshire and San Vicente and realized that there were two Wiltshire and San Vicente’s.
Ellen: Oh that’s right, I do remember that.
Bex: So it’s a little bit of flashing back, so as soon as Linda said San Vicente, I’ve gone oh no, I know what’s going to happen here. Um, So she [00:44:00] sends the 118 to 550 San Vicente for a woman in labor geriatric pregnancy, except when they get to 550 San Vicente. It’s an empty lot and there is no pregnant woman there.
Alice: Yeah, it’s literally just like a gravel under a bridge like there. It’s like a massive overpass, it’s gravel under a bridge, and they’re just like, there’s no one here.
Bex: Meanwhile, back at the other 550 San Vicente, Roger is getting very upset because the ambulance has not arrived. And it is Maddie who realizes
Ellen: There’s a bunch of people just standing around in the lobby, like, watching.
Like they’re not right next to them, but they’re away.
Bex: Oh, and like the concierge, when Roger is trying to call 9-1-1, the concierge comes up and I’m thinking, okay, cool. They’ve got one of the extras to like pretend like he’s going to help. And all he does is grab Sonia’s bag and walks away with it.
Ellen: Yeah, I saw that and I was like, what is that guy doing?
Bex: I mean, he comes back later and brings her pillows, which is fine, but the [00:45:00] way that they just cut that scene, it just looks like he’s gone, okay, no, no bag for you.
Alice: No bag for you.
Bex: But yeah, Maddie, it’s Maddie that picks up Linda’s mistake. Um, because Yeah, apparently there’s three
Alice: San Vicentes.
Bex: Bobby calls back and goes, uh, there’s no pregnant woman here. at 550 San Vicente. Maddie goes, Wait, did you just send them to San Vicente? There are three of them and she picks the correct one and manages to give Bobby the cross streets.
Uh, which I think it’s, it’s nice because it’s going from the first time Maddie encountered San Vicente she was freaking out and it’s, you know, a year later? I’m not even sure how many months later.
Alice: Not even, we’re still in season two, yeah. I’m
Bex: Yeah, but there was that three month gap in the middle, um, we’ll say, you know, it’s been some time and she is now, uh, older and wiser as a 9-1-1 [00:46:00] dispatcher and she’s like, oh, but at the same time, I know this, um, but the thing is that Linda started training with her at the same time.
And so poor Linda’s just like, how the fuck was I supposed to know that there were three San Vicentes?
Alice: Yeah, cause Linda hasn’t stabbed her ex husband, so it’s fine. Apparently. Um. Yeah. So we’re, um, we go to 550 San Vicente.
Bex: The correct 550 San Vicente
Alice: The correct 550 San Vicente. Um, Sonia’s saying that he’s ready, he wants out, and then the 118 finally arrive. So Roger turns on them and goes, “Where the hell have you guys been?” Bobby’s like, “We’re fighting a system outage. We apologize for the delay.” It’s just like, Jesus, like such stock standard answer.
Bex: I mean, what was he supposed to do, throw Linda under the bus?
Alice: Yeah, right.
Like, uh, it’s like, oh yeah, dispatch sent us to a bridge. Um, but yeah, so Eddie starts fluids, since Chimney’s not there, [00:47:00] Hen jumps straight into it. Roger’s like, “Oh, we, we can’t just have this baby here in the lobby.” And Sonia’s like, “This is pretty much the way it’s happened throughout human history.”
Uh, like this is what’s happening, like they’re, they’re not going anywhere.
Bex: You do not need a hospital to have a baby. In most cases, um, in this case, it probably would have been a good thing. A good idea.
Alice: Might’ve been nice.
Ellen: They are lying on the cold floor with a bunch of people just standing around, looking at them from a distance.
Bex: The background extras are literally just standing there. They’re not even pretending to like be worried or, you know, have their phones out and filming and they’re just standing there.
Ellen: Yeah. Like she’s got her vajayjay on full display here and they’re just like standing there like, oh, what’s happening? Oh, look, a baby. What the hell?
Alice: But yeah, like also throughout human history, they didn’t usually have babies on their backs, but you know, we won’t go into that. Yes. Before my midwife cousin comes and starts a rant [00:48:00] somehow. So yeah, so Hen asks what, what her name is, which is where we get Sonia, um, she’s 39 weeks pregnant and she’s 38 years old, which makes her a geriatric pregnancy.
Bex: Yeah.
Alice: Um, yeah. Women everywhere roll their eyes. But yeah, so Hen tells her to push on the next contraction, but Sonia go, Sonia, like Sonia has been really like, quite calm considering this whole time. Like Roger’s freaking the fuck out. But Sonia’s like, “this is just, what’s going to happen. Like, it’s fine.”
And then all of a sudden she goes super quiet and starts to panic. She’s like, “I can’t do this here. I shouldn’t have this baby. Something’s wrong. like this was a mistake.” And Hen’s like, “No, no, you’re okay. Like, all you have to do is push,” just thinking, cause like, obviously they’ve just got there.
They haven’t seen how calm sonia’s been this whole time. She’s just like, oh yeah, she’s just panicking because she’s in a hotel lobby. Um, [00:49:00] but yeah, they, uh, Sonia does big push, the baby’s out, it’s another six year old. It’s so big. But it’s screaming, like literally the crowd that have just been staring and watching start clapping.
And Hen goes to put the six year old on Sonia’s chest, and Sonia’s just out. Like, she’s just not looking at it, like, she’s just, she’s pretty much passed out.
Bex: I had to, um, sort of look closely to see whether she was, like, actively seizing at this point, but no, she’s just got this really blank look on her face. Um,
Alice: so Buck immediately, like, steals the baby from Hen, because of course he does. Um, he’s just like, give me the baby, give me the baby, give, oh, what, the mom’s dying? Oh shit, that’s awkward. But yeah, baby? Baby?
Bex: Yeah, it’s very much, Hen, I will take the baby so that you can attend to the mother. But yeah, we, we, we all know that he just wants the baby.
Alice: Literally. Like he runs out the front [00:50:00] door and just like steals it forever. It’s really weird.
Bex: No, he, he does, he does use the baby to distract Roger from what is happening with his wife.
Alice: Yeah. So Roger’s like, what’s going on? And Buck’s like, “Hey, look, there’s a baby! Look at the baby! Isn’t the baby cute?”
Bex: Just focus on the baby while your wife is, like, dying on the lobby floor here.
Alice: Um, so they quickly, like, get, like, blood pressure monitors onto, Sonia, whose blood pressure has gone off, uh, “went off the cliff,” which I think means she’s got, like, it’s Like it’s dropped. I’m guessing.
Bex: Is that what that means? Because I had no idea what Eddie was talking about. Because cliffs, cliff makes it sound like it’s high, but then it went off the cliff.
Yeah, it went off the cliff. high and then dropped?
Alice: Well, when you think of like, a cliff, like,
Ellen: if you’re going off the cliff, that means you’re dropping.
Alice: Yeah, it’s gone down. Yeah.
Bex: Okay. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve kind of got Wile E. Coyote in my head at the moment. So yeah. Okay. So yeah.
Alice: So her blood, [00:51:00] her pressure plummeted.
Bex: It’s dropped.
Alice: Hen says she’s got cyanosis, which is when, um, her skin, lips and, or nails turn blue, due to the lack of oxygen in her blood. And like, Roger’s still freaking out in the background asking what’s happening. And Buck’s like, “Your wife’s just gone into shock.”
Bex: But Eddie’s like, uh, nope, she’s dead.
I don’t have a pulse.
Alice: She’s got no pulse. So Hen starts compressions.
Bex: Bobby tries, uh, Bobby is telling them that they need to get her to hospital ASAP, and Buck reminds him like, “Yo, Cap, we’re actually gonna need an extra rescue unit for the baby.” Because you can’t have two patients in the same ambulance, apparently.
Um, but when he radios Dispatch, they a baby. Yeah. They, uh, Dispatch puts him on standby. And he’s like, fuck this, we’re not standing by, get her on the gurney and let’s go.
Alice: Yeah, like the baby’s not the priority, just get her in the thing and we’ll deal with the baby later.
Bex: Yeah, [00:52:00] so Hen and Bobby end up in the back of the rescue ambulance while Roger is with Buck and Eddie in the back of the engine truck.
Alice: So yeah, Hen continues to do compressions on Sonia, um, Bobby tries to take over, but Hen refuses. Hen’s like, “No, she’s not dying because someone blew a fuse.”
Ellen: She’s invested in this now. She doesn’t want to lose her.
Alice: Yeah. Um, so then they start sort of talking it out. Like, Hen says, you know, I know you’re a fighter.
But Bobby goes, “she is. She was. She was fine when we got there. And then,” and Hen’s like, sudden despair, fear and anxiety. She’s Bobby says the birth was going like clockwork, even for a geriatric pregnancy. Then rapid loss of blood pre uh, yeah, blood pressure. And then they realize it’s an amniotic embolism and she’s hemorrhaging.
Mm-Hmm. .
Bex: So that’s why she’s suddenly turning blue because all, [00:53:00] all of her blood is gone somewhere else, I guess.
Alice: Yeah. Um, I believe it’s basically just like she’s bleeding out into a uterus maybe.
Bex: Which wouldn’t there, like, wouldn’t they be seeing blood, though?
Alice: You would think, but it’s a network TV show and they can’t have
Ellen: Yeah, I mean, she does say she’s hemorrhaging, so I guess they know that she’s bleeding, but would that cause her to lose blood pressure like that?
Alice: Well, yeah, because all her blood’s going out instead of coming in.
Bex: Because blood pressure is how much, like, the volume of blood that’s going around your body.
Ellen: I feel like there’s nowhere near enough blood in this scene to, like, visually, there’s no blood.
Alice: Oh, apparently it’s, an amniotic embolism is one of the most catastrophic complications of pregnancy.
Ellen: Mmm. Yeah.
Bex: Lovely.
Alice: And it, an amniotic fluid, fetal cells, hair, or other debris enters the maternal pulmonary circulation. [00:54:00]
Bex: Ew.
Ellen: Oh, that doesn’t sound nice.
Alice: No.
Ellen: Anyway, they, uh, they, they realize that they need to, she’s gonna have to go for surgery immediately.
Alice: So basically, okay. So basically the amniotic fluid is, is entering the bloodstream.
Ellen: Okay. And if chunk chunky bits get into your lungs, then you’re dead. Yeah. Or your brain even for embolisms. Yeah. So they need to get her into surgery immediately, and the hospital needs to know that they’re coming so they can do that. And Bobby’s like, we can’t radio ahead, but we can call somebody. So he just calls the, the receptionist at the hospital that they’re heading to.
And he’s like, “Get me on the phone with the ER charge nurse.”
Bex: Which, can you imagine that you are the receptionist at the hospital or you’re like, you’re the call center operator and you’ve got this guy claiming to be a fire captain wanting the ER charge nurse? Yeah. Wouldn’t you just hang up on them? [00:55:00]
Ellen: It does sound a little bit like a prank call.
Alice: Well, I mean, I guess they also know that 9-1-1 down, is down, so, yeah.
Bex: I could, I mean, I could understand them taking the call if they were taking her to Presbyterian because everybody goes to Presbyterian. They know the 118 at Presbyterian by now, but they’re going to LA General. We don’t usually go to that hospital, so I’m not sure that they’re intimately acquainted with the 118 like they are at Presbyterian, but apparently they must do because when they arrive at the hospital, there is a surgical team waiting for them.
But it doesn’t matter because, um, Hen has been doing compressions for, uh, 15 minutes now, so the doc’s just like, okay, just call it. That’s too long to be, like, without a heartbeat.
Alice: Which is a bit rude because, like, Hen’s still, like, but I guess if they’ve called and said, yeah, we think she’s bleeding out, like, I guess there’s no blood left, they assume?
Bex: I don’t know. Uh, but [00:56:00] bobby kind of agrees and calls for Hen to, to stop compressions and leave her and it takes about three times before Hen submits and stops the compressions.
Ellen: And that’s when the dad, I’ve forgotten what his name is already, Roger. Roger. He comes out of the other ambulance and Um, you know, “how is she, how is she?”
And Bobby’s like, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” And then we have like a really sad scene where they’re all standing around watching while Roger tells Sonia that he’s not ready to do this without her. He’s holding their six month old newborn baby. And, um, you know, “I’m, I’m gonna, I’m gonna do this, you know, I’m not ready to do this without you, but I’m going to, um, I’m going to figure it out.”
Andy. puts the baby on, on Sonia’s chest. So she, can hold it a little bit. [00:57:00] And then the heart rate monitor is still on her for some reason. And yeah, even though she’s now out of the ambulance and I don’t know. and then suddenly it starts beeping again and now she magically has a heartbeat.
Now I’ve heard of this happening in the opposite way where a baby who they thought wasn’t going to make it, has had skin to skin contact with their mother, and then revived. But I don’t know if it happens in the opposite way. That seems
Bex: It does on 9-1-1 apparently.
Ellen: I don’t know if that’s based on a real thing.
Alice: Did the baby push the blood back in her body? Like, I don’t, yeah.
Bex: Yeah. It doesn’t matter. It’s good enough for the surgical team because they immediately wheel her, um, into the hospital to, to start transfusion or whatever it else is that they need to do. Um, and Roger takes a moment to look back at the 118 and thank them for their efforts, and Hen, who has been holding it [00:58:00] together with, by the, like, skin of her teeth, just absolutely collapses and loses it.
Alice: Like, I actually had goosebumps. I’m just like, oh my god. Yeah.
Ellen: And they’re all comforting each other. That’s kind of sweet.
Bex: So Bobby’s got his arm around Hen. Buck goes over to put his hand on, Hen’s shoulder and sort of comfort her. Eddie puts his hand on Buck’s shoulder.
Alice: Yeah, so Eddie goes, “That was amazing.”
And Buck goes, “That was a miracle.” And then turns back to Hen and Eddie just puts his hands on Buck’s shoulders. He’s like, I know you fell in love with that baby, but we had to give it back. I’m really sorry. I’ll, I’ll get you pregnant later, later. It’s all good.
Bex: I understand why they did that because they needed Ryan to be off to the side so they could get the shot of Aisha, sort of in the, the huddle.
And so if, if, um, Eddie had gone to comfort Hen as well, it would’ve [00:59:00] blocked the shot. But it just looks so weird. Yeah.
Alice: Anyway, yeah, team get Buck pregnant, please. Get that boy a baby.
Bex: Oh no, we’re back to Omegaverse.
Alice: Always back to Omegaverse. We never left Omegaverse.
Ellen: So we, we definitely need to have this, um, fanfic, like, recommendations episode at some point, right?
Bex: Give us your best 9-1-1 Omegaverse recommendations.
Alice: I don’t think I’ve seen a 9-1-1 Oh, there’s got to be some, because I think I’ve seen, I’ve seen a lot of Mpreg, but I don’t think I’ve actually seen Anyway, I’ll have to look it up.
Ellen: Ah, Supernatural Legacy.
All right. Where are we? We’re going back to dispatch again. And Josh is trying to suggest locations for Maddie.
Bex: And he’s [01:00:00] using the emergency board to point out date options to Maddie.
Alice: It’s so funny. Cause it seems like they’re like looking for an emergency and instead, no, no, they’re talking about a great little Tuscan spot.
Um, has a garden that’s not really a garden, so you still feel like you’re sitting outside. It also has string lights.
Bex: Maddie says that that sounds intimate, and Josh is a little confused because he said “I thought you wanted intimate?” Maddie corrects him and says, “No, I wanted special.” And Josh with the pop culture references goes, “Oh, Rachel McAdams special or Reese Witherspoon special?”
And I’m with Maddie, I have no idea what that means. Apparently it’s the difference between fun and flighty or serious and heartfelt. So, I’m guessing Rachel McAdams is the fun and flighty, and Reece Witherspoon is serious and heartfelt.
Ellen: Okay. No, I don’t know.
Alice: I assume so, yeah.
Bex: I don’t know either.
Alice: Maddie doesn’t want serious, Josh asks her what she does want, and then we cut to the server room. [01:01:00] So, we don’t know what Maddie wants.
Bex: Which just reminds me of that scene from The Notebook with Rachel McAdams. I thought like, “What do you want?”
Alice: Or maybe that’s what they were referencing?
Bex: Maybe that’s the, the playing of that, maybe?
Alice: Maybe, I don’t know, because they do mention, yeah, I have no idea.
Ellen: And that makes sense.
Alice: If you’ve watched a lot of Rachel McAdams or Reese Witherspoon movies, um, please tell us what the fuck Josh is referencing.
Ellen: Explain like we’re five.
Bex: Yes, explain us like we’re fifth graders.
Alice: Yep. Because we do not work here.
Bex: No. Uh, Terry does, um, and Terry is trying his very best to work with the, the FBI nerd squad, who basically just pat him on the head and escort him from the room so that the, like, the big, the grown ups can work.
Ellen: Yeah, he’s doing that thing where people come into your [01:02:00] space and, like, poke around in your shit and you’re like, But I’ve already done all that. Like, have you tried this? And they’re like, go away. Let us do our job.
Bex: Yeah. Nina very condescendingly tells him, “I’m sure that you are very good at your job, but this goes beyond tech support. Now, please let us do what we do.”
Terry’s just like, “yeah, all right, sure.” Yeah. And then we get another little scene where Maddie, um, has been off doing something and comes back to the board where Linda is marking, uh, a call, which is an electrical fire on 11th and Margot, but she’s marked it as low priority.
And you can see the wheels going in Maddie’s brain as she stares at the board and sort of repeats to herself, “11th and Margot. Like, why does that sound familiar?”
Alice: Yeah,
Bex: I don’t know why it sounds familiar. It’s not familiar to [01:03:00] us.
Alice: But apparently Maddie’s got it.
Bex: Yes, because Maddie is like super dispatcher.
She was dispatcher of the month a little while ago, remember that?
Ellen: Yeah, three times, wasn’t it?
Bex: Yeah.
Alice: Didn’t Buck tell us constantly?
Ellen: How many months has she been there?
Bex: She told Buck.
Ellen: It’s not many more than three.
Bex: So we’re going to go back to the 118. They have returned to the station to refuel the vehicles and restock the ambulance. And they are not the only ones who have returned to the station house because Bobby sees a familiar looking backpack that has been placed oh so strategically on the ping pong table, Uh, which is He recognises it as Harry’s backpack and discovers Harry sitting in one of the equipment lockers, a very guilty look on his face. Apparently, he had a fight with [01:04:00] Michael and he ran away to the station house. Which, I’ve got to give him props for, he ran away from home but he went to a safe place.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: But as soon as Bobby hears that Harry ran away and potentially Michael has no idea where he is, he immediately goes for his phone to call Michael, which Harry’s like, “No, no, no, don’t call him.”
And Bobby’s like, “No, I have to call him. I have to let him know that you’re okay.” Um, but it, it turns out that Bobby doesn’t need to call him because Harry has been tweeting about his little running away adventure. And Michael’s obviously follows him on Twitter.
Ellen: How old is Harry?
Alice: He’s 10! Why does he have a Twitter?
Who let this child on Twitter?
Bex: Why is he on Twitter? I don’t know.
Alice: Like, why is this child on Twitter?
Bex: I could understand if he was like, Snapchatting, but even then I’d be like, Why are you on Snapchat at 10?
Ellen: And Michael’s worried about his parenting?
Alice: [01:05:00] Yeah, like, maybe get your child off Twitter. Do you know how many, like, predators are on Twitter.
Your wife is a
Ellen: Not to be judgy, but I’m absolutely judging you.
Alice: Absolutely. I’m so judging. Like I don’t have any children, but I wouldn’t have a 10 year old on Twitter. Surely. I don’t want a 10 year old seeing what I tweet. It’s vile. Stuff about getting Buck pregnant.
Bex: No, it’s bad enough when like, it’s bad enough when the under 18s start to read what you’re tweeting, let alone like the under 10s.
Alice: Literally. Like the minors, I’m just like, no, no, don’t read my tweets about getting Buck pregnant. Yeah. I just don’t. It’s just occurred to me that I’ve been getting my mother into 9-1-1 because she wanted to listen to my podcast. Um, Mum, I’m really, really sorry, um, but you look at Buck and tell me you, like, that man deserves to be pregnant, okay?
Um, anyway.
Ellen: Hi Mum.
Bex: I’m so sorry Alice’s [01:06:00] mum.
Ellen: Hi Alice’s mum.
Alice: Get that boy a baby! Um, so Michael growls at Harry to get in the car. Siri was just trying to also get Buck a baby.
Yeah, where were we? I don’t know what’s going on anymore. Michael
Bex: turns up. Michael yells at, or growls at Harry to get in the car, so he very meekly grabs his backpack from Bobby, and Michael just turns and starts walking out, and Bobby is trying to, Bye. Explained himself a little bit and he’s trying to get trying to tell Michael like, “I was gonna call you We just got back. I was gonna call you.”
Michael ignores him and Bobby’s saying look, I don’t know what you two had a fight about and Michael’s like do I look it like the kind of person who would have a fight with his ten year old like you don’t fight with A ten year old.
Alice: [01:07:00] Well, you’re currently being a dick to your like ex wife’s boyfriend.
So yeah, actually You
Bex: So apparently what happened was that Harry and Kyle, which it could be the same kid from earlier, I don’t know, but they decided that it would be fun to set a fire and then try and put it out because fighting fires are so cool. And Bobby’s like, “Oh my God.” So they burned the yard down.
Everyone is fine. It And Bobby’s like, “Okay, I will talk to Harry about it.” And that’s like the last straw for Michael. He’s like, “No, you will not talk to him. That is my job, not yours. You have done enough.” Which like, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Apparently, what it means is that Michael, as Harry, used to be a bit of a nerd.
He used to play video games, he used to read comic books, but now [01:08:00] he’s outside, in the fresh air. I mean, the setting fires part is not good, but like, getting off the couch and going outside and playing with his friends, I thought Michael would have been supporting that.
Alice: Aren’t they 10? Like, shouldn’t someone be like, watching these children.
Like, again, I don’t have children, but like, at ten, like, should you just ignore ten year olds? I don’t expect them to be watched all the time, but like, where were the parents?
Bex: You know what, as a ten year old who is very much into video games and comic books and things like that, you kind of assume that they’re just gonna be on the couch all the time.
So, if Michael also assumed that Harry was just gonna be on the couch all the time, he probably didn’t think twice about sort of, you know, doing his own thing with while Harry was in the house.
Alice: Well, it wasn’t his yard though So like it was Kyle’s parents that were ignoring them.
Bex: Yes. We’ll blame Kyle’s parents.
Alice: Fucking Kyle’s parents. First, they named their child Kyle
Bex: No good comes from naming a child Kyle. But no, Michael wants to blame Bobby because apparently [01:09:00] Bobby has been filling Harry’s head with nonsense about being a big damn hero And all of these reckless ideas. Uh, and Bobby is like, “Uh, no, I’m not accepting that because I am not reckless and what we do here is not reckless.”
And then Michael gets mean. He says, “no, I get it. You’re awesome. Way more awesome than me. But I am not interested in raising my son in your image.” And Bobby’s fights back. He says, “that’s not what I’m doing. I’m just trying to be there for Harry.” And then so Michael goes in for the kill. He says, “What, because I’m not, I’m only there with him half the time now, right? Maybe that makes me half a father, but that is still half more than you.” And mike drops and walks away, Bobby just standing there bleeding. That’s. I hate the fact that these people learn who Bobby is, learn about his past, and then throw it in his face at every opportunity.
Like, Beatrice did it to him, Michael’s now done [01:10:00] it to him.
Ellen: Very mean.
Bex: So mean.
Alice: So yeah, fuck Michael.
Ellen: I mean, he’s angry, but, and he’s feeling threatened.
Bex: I get that he’s angry, and that he’s feeling threatened, and he’s feeling very vulnerable, but Don’t lash out like that. Yeah.
Alice: And like, how is it Bobby’s fault that Harry decided to start a fire?
They had just visited the fire station the other day. No, I know that, but like, Bobby didn’t tell him, hey, go start fires.
Bex: No, but it goes back to the whole thing, you know, oh, it was so cool because he knows how to fight fires and all Michael, all my dad did was hand out bottles of water.
Alice: Yeah, but that’s still not Bobby’s fault, like
Bex: Apparently Michael is a very little man.
Alice: Yeah. Like, Bobby absolutely does not deserve that treatment because Bobby didn’t, like, the, the talk was not, Hey, fire, like starting fires is really fun, which would, yes, absolutely be Bobby’s fault. The [01:11:00] talk was, this is how 9-1-1 works. That’s it. Like if they were prank calling 9-1-1, then yeah, like maybe you could link that to Bobby.
Bex: Or starting fires so they could call 9-1-1 to come put the fire out.
Alice: Yeah, like starting a fire in the library so that the homework all got burnt up. Like, yeah, maybe that would be linked, but like, I understand how he’s trying to emulate Bobby, but Bobby’s not asking him to. Like, ten year olds just lack new people in their lives.
Yeah. Imagine if Eddie got mad at Chris, at Buck because Chris thinks that he’s cool.
Bex: Okay, but your analogy fails there because Eddie also thinks Buck is cool.
Alice: That’s true.
Bex: All right, so we’re back to the episode. Um, we are now back to what appears to be the same, sort of cul de sac y row of houses that we were at the beginning of the episode. Um, and a woman is driving and the GPS is telling her to turn right and then [01:12:00] make another right, which she is frustrated about because the GPS has told her to take four rights in a row, which means she’d be driving around in circles, if my calculations are correct.
Um, and she’s, um, driving while talking on the phone. And whoever she’s talking to on the phone says that 9-1-1 is out, accidents everywhere, traffic is going crazy. And our driver just goes, “Oh, so it’s a day ending with Y in LA.”
Ellen: When I was watching this, I was like, are they like insinuating that the 9-1-1 being out is responsible for the GPS also going crazy?
Alice: I thought the same thing! I was just like, what? And then there were just like, traffic’s going crazy. I’m like, oh, it’s just trying to like, get her away from the traffic, I think. But it’s just not doing a very good job.
Ellen: Yeah. Okay. That makes, that makes more sense. But I’m like, is it just the driver being an idiot? Like, but no, it makes sense if it’s trying to reroute [01:13:00] her around traffic.
Alice: Yeah. It’s probably like, yeah, yeah. Go this way. Then it’s like, Oh wait, shit. No, that’s backed up to, uh, maybe turn around. I don’t know.
Bex: It gets her out into the suburbs, but as she’s driving down this, this road, all of a sudden fire explodes off to, um, off to her, her left.
And then while she’s freaking out about that, another fire explodes, launching a wheelie bin at her, which sends her veering off course into a fire hydrant which she knocks over and water starts spouting up into the air and all of a sudden we are back at the beginning of the episode.
Alice: Yeah, so our five hours is up.
Ellen: We caught up.
Bex: And we are right back where we started.
Alice: So the woman gets out of her car.
Bex: It’s very neatly done. I did appreciate this.
Ellen: Yes. Yeah. The man is yelling for his son who’s upstairs in the burning, exploding house. Yes.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: But we don’t get a resolution right away.
Alice: No, we get a commercial break.
Bex: Yes. Well, now we’ve caught [01:14:00] up, so now we’re going to move forward and the first thing we’re gonna do is logically go back to Chimney’s apartment. Well, obviously. Because that makes sense.
Alice: Um, he’s, he seems, I think he’s finished Marie Kondo ing at this point?
Bex: I think he’s just forgotten about the Marie Kondo ing. He’s far too interested in what’s going on with the news, with all the
Alice: I mean, it has been five hours, so.
Bex: Maybe. But the news has now caught up with what’s happening in this little suburb area, which we’re calling Doheny Park. And the, uh, the anchor is reporting that there are explosions happening all over the place.
But there is no first responders on the scene, and Chim’s like, what the fuck, where are you guys? Pulls out his phone and calls Buck. And literally says, “Where are you guys?”
Alice: Okay, so one, why did Chim just call Buck? Like why not Bobby? Two, is it just because Buck always answers his phone while he’s at work?
Because again, he answered his phone while at work. [01:15:00]
Ellen: He does have a history of doing that.
Alice: There’s not even a like, oh guys, it’s Chim! He’s just like, “Yeah, what’s up?” Um, “Yo, Rebar.”. Um, so yeah, so Buck’s just like, “Oh yeah, we’re like crossing Robertson for the 320th time.” And Chim’s like, “Oh dude, like the whole neighborhood in Doheny Park is on fire. Like, go over there.”
And Buck’s like, “Oh, did you hear it on the scanner?” And Chim’s like, “No, I’m watching the news.” So yeah, so Buck tells Bobby to get over to Doheny Park, And so, yeah, they go over to Doheny Park and sure enough, there’s no one else there.
Bex: Yeah, they report to dispatch that they’re going to Doheny Park, they’re not waiting to get called out.
Um, Josh tells them that he’s going to try and find additional resources for them, but they are probably going to be there on their own for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Alice: Yeah, because like, they don’t know where all the trucks are either. So they’ve got to like work out where everyone is [01:16:00] and then work out who’s free.
Bex: Yeah. Yeah.
Alice: So yeah, it’ll be 15, maybe 20 minutes. And so
Bex: Before they can even get out of their truck, the father who, we never get a name for him. There’s a name in the closed captions. They call him David. So just for the ease of it, we’re just going to call him David. Um, David is immediately throwing himself on the truck going, “You’ve got to help my son. He’s trapped upstairs.”
Alice: So yeah, Bobby jumps out of the truck, asks which room. David goes, “I haven’t seen him.” But Eddie, who’s like immediately looking at the house, sees the curtains moving, and he’s in one of the upstairs windows.
Ellen: Wasn’t he in the window before, though? He’s waving out the window.
Alice: Literally, he’s been waving out the window the whole time, I think David’s just
Bex: I think he was waving out the window and then the explosion happened and he probably
Ellen: Yeah, like a moment later.
Like, well
Bex: We don’t know how long it took the 118 to get there, though. So he might have True. Dropped to the floor when it [01:17:00] exploded, and, and David lost sight of him. Eddie has spotted the kid and so Bobby orders Buck to go get the ladder truck so that they can get to the upper story and um, get the kid.
And I love that when the, when they cut to a little bit, like just a few minutes later, the truck is rolling forward and Buck’s just hanging off the side of it. It just looks so cool. But we have discovered that when our driver friend from earlier crashed into that fire hydrant, um, spilling the water everywhere, that was apparently the only source of water for the entire sort of cul de sac, and there is no water to fight the fires.
There is only what fire, only what water is in the engine truck’s reserves and that’s not enough to put out one house, let alone an entire neighborhood’s worth of houses. Which, that doesn’t sound good. It doesn’t sound real either. [01:18:00]
Ellen: No, I, like, if she just knocked the hydrant over, like, wouldn’t there be like a big… like a geyser of water, like gushing up into the sky, like, I don’t know if that’s just a movie thing.
Bex: There was though. That’s, that’s the, that was the thing. We saw that, um, we saw that she knocked the hydrant over and there’s this geyser of water, but I’m guessing that the water has been spewing for so long that it’s, they can’t tap it,
Alice: I guess.
They’ve, they’ve run out of all the, yeah, I don’t know, but I guess like, cause the hydrant’s gone, they can’t attach to the hydrant.
Bex: But again, one hydrant for the entire street?
Alice: Yeah, that’s it. No more water.
Bex: No more water.
Alice: LA is actually now out of water.
Bex: But obviously they need to set up the fact that they have no water for the rest of the storyline to make sense. Yeah. But yes, there’s no water. And which Chimney apparently figures out just by watching the news. Because I don’t think the [01:19:00] anchor says anything about it, but he’s pacing back and forwards in his apartment, um, trying to troubleshoot this from
Alice: Yeah, he’s, he’s literally like, they have no water, they’ve got no backup, like he
Ellen: Buck probably sent him a text.
Alice: Buck’s tweeting it with the hashtag, 9-1-1 LA. Yeah, he’s like, there’s no water, we can’t do this. Down here in Doheny Park, got no water, peace sign. Yeah.
Bex: But then Chimney gets an idea.
Alice: One of my followers is scaling a drainpipe.
Bex: So Chimney again pulls out his phone and makes a call. Um, like the first time, the first time that I watched this, I didn’t pick this up. Ellen, did you pick up who he called?
Ellen: Yeah, he said, he said, Hey, Tommy. Um, and I, The only reason that I knew that it was the Tommy from last week, or whatever, is because I knew from the future that he’s a pilot. I didn’t know that previously. Ah, okay. Like, I would never have known.
Alice: Yeah, like, I picked it [01:20:00] up, I picked it up the first time I watched, but again, only because I started watching because of 7.04.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Okay. So every Tommy mentioned, I like wrote down in my notes because that was before everyone hated Tommy .
Bex: As, as, so as the, as the only person on this podcast who was watched prior to season seven.
Um, I did not pick up that this was Tommy Kinard.
Alice: No. Like why would you pick up the fact that it was a generic white man that like.
Bex: Because, like, in, now that we’re sort of watching it, having seen previous, having seen future episodes, it makes sense. But this is an instance where the writers have obviously planned ahead, and so Chimney is operating on information that he knows, but we as the audience don’t know yet.
Alice: I’m just imagining Chim being like, “Hey Tommy,” Tommy’s like, “Hey man,” “yeah, you still with the, the 217?” “Yeah, I’m just at a monster truck rally.” [01:21:00] Um, but yeah, I, I completely forgot that they do actually mention now that Like, Tommy works in some regard with the, like, you don’t see him flying in this episode?
Ellen: Yeah, he’s not actually in the episode. Like, I assume it’s his voice on the phone? Like, do we even hear him speak?
Alice: No, you don’t really hear it. Like, you sort of hear it, but
Bex: I doubt they would have dragged Lou Ferrigno Jr. down for, like, two lines. Yeah. It’s just, they’ve got someone, um, on the ADR booth who’s just jumped in to do those two lines.
But I’m guessing that the 217 is the equivalent of the 114 in real life, which is the um, the aerial firefighting unit that works out of Van Nuys Airport. That’s, that’s where all the aerial stuff, like all the helicopters are.
Ellen: Right. So yeah, Buck is climbing up the ladder, but for some reason the ladder truck isn’t [01:22:00] close enough to the house for the ladder to reach the house. Like, Buck’s like, reaching out to try and, like, the kid, the kid is at the window now, looking out of the window, and
Bex: But he’s at a different window, because the idiot’s been running around Buck’s desk.
Ellen: I don’t know, but he’s, they’re trying to move the, the ladder and extend it, and Buck is like, like, standing on the end of it.
It just looks extremely unsafe. I don’t know if this is, like, something that would really happen.
Bex: Especially when you’ve got, When you’ve got ladder trucks held together with, like, chewing gum and spit.
Ellen: Yeah, well, we find it, like, we fuck around and find out when, um, the ladder actually breaks, and Buck manages to grab onto the end of it and, you know, dangles underneath it. But, um, yeah, he’s lucky he didn’t break his neck out of that one.
Alice: Yeah, I think Buck should just stay away from climbing ladders, honestly.
Bex: Oh, honestly! Buck and extending ladders is not a good [01:23:00] idea. No. Uh, so Bobby is freaking out because the, you know, the ladder truck is broken and his son is just dangling in midair holding onto this, this broken piece of ladder.
Um, Eddie has other ideas and he turns and runs towards the house. And when Buck gets down onto the ground, he’s like, Hey, Eddie, what are you doing? Um, Eddie is shimmying up the drain pipe.
Alice: Yeah, literally just climbs straight up the drainpipe.
Ellen: They just looked away and all of a sudden he’s like, right, I’m in there. Off he goes.
Bex: And then he, he climbs up on the roof and then sort of crawls across, uh, over the top of the, the peak of the roof. And Buck is just watching him and then looks at Bobby and goes, “I feel like if I did that you would yell at me. Why aren’t you yelling at him?”
Ellen: Yeah, I was asking the same question. I’m like, why are they just standing there looking at him? No one’s
Alice: like literally, like Bobby’s just like, uh, [01:24:00] like he looks so… He’s like, yep, yep, yep. Wow.
Ellen: And at first I thought like when he was right up on the top of the roof there, I thought he was going to like Santa Claus his way down the chimney or something.
But no, he does better than that.
Alice: Maybe that’s how Chimney got his nickname.
Ellen: He does. Maybe.
Write that down for future reference. if we ever find out. Um.
Bex: We’re never gonna find out.
Alice: Yeah, there’s no way they can come up with a better storyline. No. Than like, the theories.
Bex: Everything we’ve ever thought about.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Well, I mean going down a chimney would be fine. I’d buy that. It sounds like something Chim would do.
Um, but in this case he, he doesn’t do that because he can do something that Chim can’t do, which is The Manoeuvre.
Alice: Yay!
Bex: Oh my god, it is The Manoeuvre, isn’t it?
Ellen: He just swings in through the window. Perfectly through this tiny window.
Alice: Doesn’t even get cut up.
Ellen: He’s never done the manoeuvre before.
Alice: [01:25:00] I mean, he could put his visor down, so that’s fine.
Ellen: Well, maybe he has. Who knows?
Alice: Buck and him practice it at home.
Bex: It’s foreplay.
Alice: Which one’s doing the manoeuvre and which one’s pretending to? Anyway, I don’t even know how that works. Do they switch it?
Bex: They’re switches, they take it in turns.
We’re sorry, Alice’s mom.
Alice: Mom will be like, Oh, now that I finished season one, I should listen to your podcast. And I’ll be like, no, what’s it called? It doesn’t have a name. Um, we don’t actually publish it. Uh, we just like to have calls every week.
Ellen: It’s fine. You’re just going to have to explain fan fiction to her.
And then she’ll be lost. She’ll be on her way. It’s fine. You’ll never see her again, she’ll just be reading the whole time.
Bex: Yes! [01:26:00] So suddenly she’s very invested in her Kindle.
Alice: To be fair, like, there’s a reason that I have a love of fan fiction and It’s, like, my mother was reading, like, erotic novels before I was born.
Ellen: Oh, there you go.
Alice: Runs in the family. Yeah. Um, anyway, so Buck, uh, Eddie climbs over the roof, um, goes into the window. And Buck is just standing there going, Oh my God, that was hot. Buck’s like, I’m going to need a cold shower after this. Um, and yeah, does the maneuver through the window, but the kid’s not there because he’s fucking moved again.
Doesn’t even know, like, to stay low to the ground. He literally is just running from room to room and it’s like, fuck’s sake, go to a talk where they tell you to stay down low and, like, get
Bex: His class apparently never got to go to a trip to a fire station.
Alice: Well, he missed it. He was moving house.
Bex: True.
Alice: But yeah, so Eddie tries to find him, but he’s choking on the smoke, um, the kid’s gone [01:27:00] into the bathroom, which is weird because Eddie goes into the bathroom and it’s carpeted?
Bex: It’s massive and it’s like three quarters of the room is carpeted and I have no idea what is going on in this house.
Alice: Like, there’s a bathtub in there, there’s a toilet in there, but it’s carpeted. Yeah, and there’s no like, internal walls.
Ellen: In the UK, they often have carpet in the bathroom. We had a house that had carpet….
Bex: No, but this isn’t a bathroom.
This looks like a bedroom that they have tiled off, like a tiny quarter of the room, like the rest of the room is wide open and carpeted, then you’ve just got tile and a toilet and a bathroom.
Ellen: Oh, that’s weird. I didn’t expect that.
Alice: It’s very strange. Like it’s literally, like you, you never see a sink. Like it’s literally just a bathtub and a toilet.
Ellen: That, that’s weird.
Alice: And carpet.
Ellen: We, we had this carpet in the bathroom in, in our house in the UK, and it [01:28:00] was so gross because, I mean, for one thing, it’s right next to the toilet. So, like, yeah. And, we had this problem with leaking, um, pipes, like, the, behind the shower. And, and it was so bad, we, the people who we were renting from, just didn’t bother coming to fix it for ages.
And we had so much damp in there because in their houses are all shut up like most of the year, so it’s just never things never dry out. And we had mushrooms growing in this carpet.
Alice: Oh my god.
Ellen: It was so gross.
Alice: And eventually they came So rentals in the UK are the same as rentals in Melbourne is what you’re saying?
Ellen: Apparently.
Alice: Apparently.
Ellen: Um, yeah, eventually they came and fixed it and we got it all cleaned and it was just we were like When the, when the mushrooms started growing, we were like ringing the real estate going, look, we can’t live here. We’re going to get sick. Please come and fix this. Yeah. So anyway,
Alice: that’s crazy.
Ellen: Anyway, uh, [01:29:00] carpeted bathrooms. It’s a thing.
Bex: Carpeted bathrooms, yeah.
Alice: I’ve seen carpeted kitchens too.
Ellen: Not in Australia. We do not do that. We don’t do that here.
Alice: We do have carpeted kitchens though, which is also weird.
Ellen: Yeah, no, I would not put carpet in the kitchen. That’s gross.
Alice: No. Anyway, yeah, so, um, um, Eddie crawls over.
The kid is unconscious. But alive, and he’s preparing for evac, but then flames just like,
Bex: whoosh in the background. Like the house is like, ah, no, you’re here, you’re staying.
Ellen: He’s coughing through the smoke. I’m like, why did you not put a mask on before you came in through the window? Like,
Alice: literally.
Bex: Because that would have, like, he had enough time to run back to the truck and get rope.
Apparently, he did not think about grabbing an O2 mask at the same time. Yeah.
Alice: But yeah, back down on the street, Hen says that the gas guys have just shown up, they’re shutting down the gas, all the neighbors are present and accounted for, there’s two more [01:30:00] engines rolling in, but there’s still no water pressure.
Um, and then the house explodes behind them. Like, that Eddie’s in. So Eddie ducks and rolls, and he goes, “okay, negative on the evac, I’m pinned down on the south side.” And Buck immediately goes, Oh my God, like, “I’m going to try an extinguisher, I got it, I got it, I’m going in!”
Bex: Like Buck, the entire house is on fire, your one little extinguisher is going to do jack shit.
Alice: Literally, like how are you going to get in there? Like he literally is planning on jumping from the ladder, which is broken, um, with an extinguisher. And Bobby’s just like, what the fuck are you doing?
Ellen: He’s trying to rescue his boy!
Alice: The love of my life needs me! Our child needs his mother.
But then we hear a plane.
Ellen: Alright Bex, tell us about this plane. [01:31:00]
Bex: Oh my God, okay, so, if you like this episode, if you love this scene, and I understand if you do because I loved this scene, I thought this scene was the coolest thing that 9-1-1 has ever done.
Ellen: It was a very cool scene, yes.
Bex: If you do like it and you would like to continue to like it, um, I would suggest scrubbing forwards for about five minutes.
Because, I I don’t know why, I know that 9-1-1 is full of shit, I know they do everything for the drama, I don’t know why I try and fact check this show, but I did, and I destroyed this scene for myself. And if you do, if you want to hear me destroy this scene for you, um, then continue listening. If you don’t, um, scrub on for about five minutes.
Alice, Ellen, I apologize because I’m about to ruin this for you.
Ellen: Go on.
Bex: Um. Sorry. A plane sweeps in, and it’s a [01:32:00] C 130 Hercules water bomber. And the conceit is that Chim has called Tommy, who has flown in with his water bombing plane, and they’re going to bomb the neighborhood, to put out the fires. There are, like, three problems with this, however.
If the 217 is indeed based on the 114, which is the aerial firefighting unit for the Los Angeles Fire Department, um, they don’t have planes. They do now, as of August, 2024, they have acquired a couple of Hercules bombers, but back in 2019, they only had helicopters and any planes that they had, they would be borrowing from Canada.
And I think also from Australia, but they would only borrow those during the high fire season, like July onwards. So if Tommy had wrapped up in a
Alice: And for those in the Northern hemisphere, we don’t really need them in, Our [01:33:00] winter because we don’t really have fires in our winter. So it’s like, yeah, you can just keep them.
We don’t care.
Bex: Yeah So if Tommy had rocked up in a helicopter, I would have been okay with it But he didn’t he rocked up in a C 130 There are C 130 bombers in California. They are owned by The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection And they use them to fight wildfires out in the forests of California.
Um, but then we get to problem number two, which is those planes are set up to disperse fire retardant. And the fire retardant is like 80 percent water, 12 percent ammonium phosphate, and it’s not used to put out fires. It’s more, they send out the planes to lay down this fire retardant in advance of fires because once they coat [01:34:00] the trees and the bushes and everything with this stuff, it just literally won’t burn.
Ellen: So, yeah. It doesn’t put fire out.
Alice: Yeah, I don’t know why they didn’t use a helicopter.
Bex: It probably would put fire out, but they don’t use it as, uh, we’re going to put out this fire. It’s like, we can see the fire is coming, so we’re going to lay this down in its, in its path, so that it’s going to get to here and it’s just going to go out because it doesn’t have any fuel anymore.
Alice: Um, yeah, it’s, I don’t know why they don’t use a helicopter. Because
Bex: it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t look as cool though. It’s the only thing I can think of.
Alice: Cause like then they would have just dumped it on the house.
Ellen: Do the helicopters carry water?
Alice: Yeah. Yeah. So the helicopters have like a, as someone who like literally lived through a bushfire, um, the helicopters have like a hose in them.
They go over to a water source, which is usually like, well, I guess here it’s a dam, I guess. LA would be the same. It’d just be like some sort of water source.
Ellen: The ocean?
Alice: But they used our dams during Black Friday, [01:35:00] uh, Black Saturday. So we saw it a lot. Um, but yeah, they just use a water source. So they go suck up the water using the hose and then they dump it on the fire to put the fire out.
Bex: Right. Yeah, they’ve got giant tanks underneath them.
Alice: It’s really cool to watch and there’s big ones and there’s small ones. So there’s, is it Hercules? Elvis?
Bex: The, um Yeah, Elvis is one of the heli is one of the airplanes, though, I believe. Or is he one of the helicopters?
Alice: I’m pretty sure Elvis is the helicopter.
It’s cool. Um, yeah, Elvis is the helicopter. So, Elvis is the huge one. Which is the main one we have in Australia. Mm hmm. Um, we also have a lot of smaller ones, too. So we had a smaller one. We had two small ones, I think, that would, like, tag team back and forth. Um, and use our dam and then go over to our neighbor’s place and put the fire out around them.
So that was really cool. But, like, the Elvis helicopter will do the same thing as the [01:36:00] plane did in the show. Like, it
Bex: just doesn’t look as cool, I guess, because you don’t have the, like, the, the swooping in of the plane. Um, but, um, But then we get to problem number three, which I didn’t realize was a problem until I started googling because I was trying to work out what the plane was that they were using.
And I came across a Reddit thread which led me to a news article, because this episode aired April 15th, 2019, as we said at the beginning of the episode. April 15th, 2019, Notre Dame was on fire.
Ellen: Oh, Jesus.
Alice: Oh no!
Bex: And Donald Trump, who, you know, as we know, is a world expert in firefighting and firefighting methods, um, he tweeted, perhaps flying tankers could be used to put out the fire in Notre Dame.
Um, to which the entire French firefighting and pretty much anyone who has ever done any kind of firefighting in the world just [01:37:00] went, um, you’re a fucking idiot. Um, because I’m reading from the article here. “Dropping water from a firefighting plane is the equivalent of dropping three tons of concrete at 250 kilometers an hour on a building. It would have absolutely flattened Notre Dame.” Yeah.
But because it’s such an intense deluge of water, they don’t use it in urban firefighting because number one, it’s going to destroy the structures that you were trying to put out, but it also puts everybody on the ground at risk.
Ellen: Right.
Bex: You imagine that much water coming down onto you and onto the things that you were perhaps hiding underneath, it also has the potential of creating even more collateral damage because it’s going to, like, send everything flying from the impact of this water.
Ellen: So hiding underneath a fire truck is probably not enough.
Bex: Probably [01:38:00] wouldn’t help you. Yeah. Okay. It’s just, the irony of 9-1-1 airing, and then doing this, and then in the news people are saying, Yeah, no, this is a bad idea, we never do this in real life. Just, I love, the timing is amazing. But, um, yeah, so it kind of, It just, it just completely destroys the scene for me because it’s just not possible that they would, that this could happen in reality.
And I don’t know why I’m getting upset about it because I know that stuff happens in this show that could never happen in reality. Like, you managed to time it perfectly that a train is going to stop so that when the doors open you’re directly behind the person that you were trying to arrest. Um. But it makes me sad that this, like, amazing, heart stirring, emotionally impressive scene is, is one of the ones that wouldn’t actually work in reality.
Alice: Um, but anyway, in 9-1-1 it does work, um, so they
Bex: In [01:39:00] 9-1-1 it does work and it looks very impressive because the plane sweeps in and everybody dives…
Bobby
Alice: sees the plane and, yeah, tells everyone to get under the trucks. So like, gets everyone under all the trucks that are there, um, Bobby also radios Eddie and tells him to hunker down because the plane’s in he says the 217’s inbound.
Bex: Apparently everybody knows what the 217 means.
Alice: Um, and Eddie’s like, uh, what?
Bex: But then Eddie’s, Eddie’s response is, I’m going to put the kid in the bathtub, I’m going to climb into the bathtub, I’m going to open my bunker coat, which apparently must be made of like the same kind of, material that Captain America’s shield is made out of, because I’m just going to hold it out open over the kid and it is going to protect us both from this insane deluge of water that’s going to drop down over us.
Alice: Magic coat.
Bex: Um, apparently I want one of these turn out coats.
Alice: Yeah, so they’re in the bath getting shielded. Bobby grabs Hen and pulls her [01:40:00] under the truck. And the plane opens the tank doors and drops a shit ton of water all over the house and like, into the street, because obviously it, like,
Ellen: I mean it looks like it’s got some foam in it as well. Like the flame retardant stuff, maybe. Cause it looks,
Bex: I think that’s just the oxygen in the water. Cause you know like when you run a tap and the water foams up?
Ellen: like after, after it’s all done, there’s just water everywhere. So I just assumed that it was water, but when it was falling, it looked like it was, um, you know, something else.
Alice: But yeah, it puts out the fire, it fixes everything because it’s a magical plane, um.
Bex: Yes, and nobody gets hurt.
Alice: No one gets hurt. Eddie’s fine.
Bex: Eddie somehow survives. The kid does not drown because apparently the, the coat managed to stop water from getting into the bathtub and drown the kid.
Alice: No, it’s fine. He didn’t put the plug in, the water just went down the bathtub, God Bex.
Bex: That’s one rapidly emptying tub, that’s almost dangerous if it empties [01:41:00] that quickly, because that’s like it’s going to suck your foot down.
Alice: The children down, it’s like, oh shit. Um, but yeah, so the house, the front door of the house opens up and we basically get like a choir playing, well, Eddie carries this child out, puts him on the board.
Bex: How exactly is sunlight shining out of that door?
Alice: It’s magical.
Ellen: Um. I saw that. Half the house is falling down and there’s like light shining through the
Alice: They do a quick sternum rub and the child just wakes up.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Um, and Buck is immediately like at Eddie. And just goes, what’s up with the Spider Man routine?
Gonna be thinking about that later tonight.
Bex: Smoke eating Spider Man.
Alice: And Eddie says he doesn’t know he just did it and he prayed a lot, which [01:42:00] is out of Eddie’s character we find out later, but I guess
Bex: I would just like to point out that any military training that Eddie had for following orders has now completely left his system.
Alice: Oh yeah, Buck has completely corrupted him.
Bex: Completely corrupted him.
Alice: He’s like, you know in my first six months I stole um, the ladder truck to have sex on the, like, had sex in the engine, had sex in the ladder truck, and then he’s like, hmm.
Ellen: Me likey.
Alice: But, but Bobby says it looks like someone was listening.
Bex: And that someone was Chim.
Alice: It was definitely Chim!
Bex: Because we then cut to Chim, he’s got his arm raised in victory going, Yes! Ow! Victory stances don’t work when you’ve been stabbed three times in the abdomen.
Alice: Um, yeah, new religion is Chimney. Pray to the altar of [01:43:00] Chimney.
Ellen: Now we can go back to Marie Condoing his clothes. Oh, thank God. The excitement’s over.
Alice: I was worried.
Ellen: And, and everything’s fixed. The magical airplane also fixed the dispatch because
Alice: It did!
Ellen: They didn’t find anything. No viruses, no nothing. And apparently it all came back. Because Maddie realized that the electrical fire, that was the low priority call, is where the communications equipment lives for 9-1-1, which I feel like someone should have realized before now.
Alice: I do love that the fact, the fact that there was just like, there was just a fire going and they were just like, nah, we’ll deal with that later. Like, what were they going to do? Was the fire just going to like keep going forever? Like, I don’t understand.
Ellen: Like the whole system went down. They didn’t even think to check on the communications. equipment.
Bex: Nobody tried turning it off and turning it back on again. Yeah. Is [01:44:00] literally what it comes down to.
Ellen: They just jumped straight to cyber terrorism.
Bex: Yes. Horses, not zebras. Which, yeah.
Alice: Yeah, they literally just didn’t bother to look at the generator.
Ellen: It just broke. The episode title, almost. Nothing, I don’t think anyone actually says “broken”.
Bex: We get broke a couple of times.
Ellen: Yeah, broke is, yeah. But not.
Bex: But not broken. So, thank you, uh, our writer for this episode for, um, for not making us take a shot. Yes.
Alice: Yeah, we’re actually sober tonight. It’s very exciting.
Bex: Um, uh, so yeah, so somebody has gone over into 11th and Mango and they’ve calmed the generator down and they’ve unplugged it and they’ve turned it off and turned it back on again and the CAD comes back up and everybody is happy.
And the Nerd Squad is just like, “We didn’t even think of that. Yep. [01:45:00] Our bad.”
Ellen: So we haven’t visited the Grants in a while. Like their house. Let’s do that. So, um, Athena gets home and, and she sees, and May is there. And she says to May as she walks in, “Oh, do you know what happened to the Anderson’s front yard? It looks like it’s burned up.” And May’s just like, “you should ask Harry about that.”
Alice: Yeah. I wasn’t home.
Ellen: And we only just get that one reference. We don’t get any further explanation of what happened afterwards, but I liked that.
Bex: No, but Harry is in the kitchen. Um, Making Athena’s favourite, which is waffles.
And Athena’s like, “Oh that’s sweet! What did you do?” Literally.
Alice: Um, but also, hang on, so Michael picked up Harry from the fire station after having a fight after this kid’s lit something on fire.
Bex: Yep.
Alice: [01:46:00] Um, yelled at Bobby Yeah. And then just took Harry home and left him at Athena’s place.
Ellen: With his sister.
Alice: Yeah. And then let him cook!
Bex: I’m going to assume that May was home by then.
Ellen: And didn’t tell Athena anything. Didn’t tell her….
Alice: yeah. Didn’t even call Athena. Like, no wonder Harry likes Bobby better, because Michael’s not doing great fathering right now.
Bex: He’s a little bit emotionally distraught right now. You gotta cut him a tiny bit of slack.
Alice: Michael’s like, this kid sucks. I’m dropping it back at its mother’s place and going home.
Ellen: This is not my child anymore.
Bex: Not my circus, not my monkeys. It’s your turn.
Alice: Um, and like, Bobby also didn’t message Athena and go, like, Hey, one, your ex husband’s an asshole. And two, your kid literally set a fire.
You should probably deal with that.
Ellen: I mean, he must have taken it to heart when Michael told him to butt out. .
Alice: Yeah. Poor Bobby.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: But before we get the resolution [01:47:00] to that storyline, we’ve gotta jump back into the, um, Maddie and Chimney storyline, where Maddie is getting ready to leave, but leaving means going to pick up Chim for their date.
And she hasn’t planned anything. Which I mean, it’s kind of understandable because she had a pretty busy day. But, Josh wonders whether it was that she was so busy or maybe it’s that she was sort of subconsciously procrastinating because she’s not ready to go on this date with Chimney.
Alice: Mm hmm.
Bex: And Maddie kind of agrees with him, but she says that she just needs to leave what happened behind her and she needs to move forward.
And then Josh gives a, this great analogy where he says, when people break a leg, nobody says, just walk it off because they recognize that walking on an [01:48:00] injury like that only compounds the damage. Implying that she, Maddie should be treating her trauma the same way she would treat a broken leg and she shouldn’t be trying to walk on it.
Pretend, he tells her that, um, pretending that she’s not hurt is not the same as healing. He can be very profound sometimes, Josh.
Alice: I love Josh. So then we go back to station 118 and the broken ladder truck.
Ellen: Is this the first time we’ve seen Marty?
Bex: Yeah, it is the first time we’ve seen Marty.
Ellen: He just, he was kind of familiar. I’m like, have we seen you before? But no, I don’t think so.
Bex: We haven’t seen Marty. And this is a very, this is a very clever scene. I do like this scene. Um, and we can discuss next week why I like this scene. Okay. Uh, so Marty appears to be [01:49:00] the mechanic for either the 118 specifically or for LAFD and he’s come out to inspect the ladder truck.
Um, and he tells Bobby that he can possibly repair it, but he’s going to need to take it away. They’re going to be without a ladder truck for a few days. Um, he can bring in the backup ladder truck, but you know, there’s a reason that it’s the backup.
Alice: Yeah. Uh, paperclip and duct tape.
Bex: Yes. Although Marty does offer to throw in some chewing gum to help keep it together a little bit longer if Bobby would like.
Marty says that even with a broken ladder truck, he’s impressed that Bobby got the job done. That’s not nothing. And Bobby has a great line where he says, “Equipment breaks, we don’t.”
Ellen: And Marty likes that so much that he says that that’s a t shirt. Put that on a t shirt.
Bex: I wonder if it [01:50:00] is on a t shirt somewhere.
Somebody must’ve put it on Redbubble.
Ellen: Yeah, it’ll be on there somewhere. And if not, it will be now because of the bots will take it.
But Michael is there.
Bex: Yes. When Bobby turns to climb down off the ladder truck, cause he and Marty are having this conversation standing on top of the ladder truck, um, and he’s Bobby turns and sees Michael waiting for him on the ground, and says that, uh, Michael says that he thinks that he and Bobby need to talk.
So Bobby takes him up to the kitchen, offers him coffee and tells him that there is pie, and so they talk and Michael apologizes to Bobby and says that he was out of line and that he shouldn’t have lost his temper like that. Bobby accepts the apology and he says, you know, I’m, if he’s overstepping with the kids, he is sorry, he apologizes and he will back off.[01:51:00]
And Michael explains what we, the audience already know that he was. He overheard Harry bragging about his cool new dad and it stung a little.
Ellen: And Bobby’s pretty sure that he’s just impressed by his shiny trucks.
You know, Michael says, but he was mad.
Alice: It’s the shiny trucks and the uniforms. Let’s be real.
Ellen: Everyone’s impressed by uniform. Uh, he ran here to Bobby and, you know, Bobby says, I don’t think it’s, I don’t think it’s because he thinks of me as his dad.
It’s because. I’m a safe person. He doesn’t say that, but that’s kind of what he implies. I’m, “I’m best buddy, Bobby, nothing but fun.” And Michael’s like, what the hell are you talking about, man?
Bex: Bobby says it’s something that Athena keeps telling him. Yeah. That Bobby is trying to be their friend. But he needs to be their step parent and Bobby confesses that she’s right, that he is [01:52:00] overcompensating with the kids because he is not their father.
And Michael goes, “Well, you know, I I wouldn’t get too worked up over the fact that you’re not their father because I am no fun at all. I mean, just ask Harry or Glenn.” Um Because apparently, he and Glenn broke up.
Ellen: Aww.
Bex: So, Bobby breaks out the ice cream.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Because ice cream heals all wounds. And he apologizes to Michael, saying that Athena didn’t tell him that Michael and Glenn broke up.
And Michael’s like, “well that’s because I haven’t told her. Um, because I don’t know how to tell her. Like, how do you say to your ex wife, like, remember that time I blew up your life and left you for somebody? Uh, well, whoops. Didn’t work out.” Yeah.
Alice: Yeah, that’s maybe not the best way in. So yeah, so Michael says, for the last three days he’s been feeling like a fool and then started acting like one.
And Bobby says that it [01:53:00] wasn’t his finest moment either. Uh, Michael struck a nerve. “The reason that I don’t put my foot down with your kids is that I’m always afraid they’re gonna tell me that I’m not their father. Because I’m not. I’m nobody’s father.” Which is mean because Buck’s right there.
Ellen: He can’t put his foot down with Buck either. No, he does it all the time.
Alice: He puts his foot down all the time with Buck. Yeah. And Buck’s never turned around and gone, you’re not my real dad. Yet.
Bex: I mean, it’s, it’s such a sad sentiment, but I don’t know whether it’s Is it in Bobby’s character to think that he’s not a father anymore?
Ellen: I mean, I guess it’s He’s, he’s sort of moved past his, I don’t know, maybe he’s just slipping back into the depression kind of Michael’s pushing him over the edge a minute.
Alice: But yeah, but Michael says that he’s about to become a stepfather [01:54:00] so they have to work on Bobby’s bad cop routine and present a united front or the kids will divide and conquer us for sure.
Bex: And Bobby and Michael’s friendship was born.
Ellen: Yeah, they’re friends again now. And Bobby’s like, “Do you need to talk about…” and Michael just goes, “No.”
Bex: Nope.
Ellen: Oh, that didn’t end well. Okay.
Bex: I think Bobby was slightly relieved that he doesn’t have to discuss Michael’s sex life with him.
Which I can imagine that he would, like, he would be just absolutely itching to get the tea so that he could share it with Athena.
Alice: I know, right? But also, he has to deal with Eddie and Buck’s and Chim’s love lives. He doesn’t want to deal with Michael’s as well.
Ellen: He just goes into dad mode. Yeah, he can’t help himself.
Bex: What’s he talking about? He’s not a father. He’s got like a whole station package.
Ellen: He’s [01:55:00] dad to everybody.
Alice: Literally.
Bex: Speaking of Chimney and his love life, um, Maddie really didn’t come up with a plan. So rather than picking Chimney up and, you know, showing him the town, they end up sitting in Chimney’s apartment, eating bowls of, it just looks like plain pasta. Yeah.
Alice: Like, did, did Maddie cook? Did Chimney cook? Did they just get takeout?
Bex: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m going to say Chim cooked, um, and like, he’s, he’s tried, there’s a tablecloth. No, I just remember future episodes when we see Maddie try to cook and it doesn’t end up going well. Yeah. So I’m, I’m leaning on the side of the man who can make her hot mustard, um, is probably going to be the more likely one to cook.
Ellen: Yeah, that’s right.
Bex: He’s got like flowers on the table, and there’s a little candle, and there’s wine, and it looks very romantic, but they’re just not feeling it. [01:56:00]
Alice: It’s awkward as fuck.
Ellen: No, it’s sad, yeah.
Bex: They’re talking about the weather for fuck’s sake!
Alice: Yeah. Um, yeah, Chim literally says, “I think it’s supposed to start raining tomorrow.”
Bex: Which leads them to to a discussion about their mental states because Maddie says, “Oh, that’s great. If it’s raining, I can just stay at home and sleep. Um, catch up on some sleep” actually, which Chim asks, are you not sleeping well? And Maddie goes, “No, I’m falling into a depressive funk. All I want to do is sleep. I just want to throw the covers up over my head and never come back out again.” Um, and then Chim confesses that he’s not okay either.
Alice: I’m really proud of them for having this conversation.
Bex: They’re talking, they’re using their words.
Alice: Like they’re actually, yeah, like they are communicating, like Chim, after Season 1, where literally he didn’t even know that the girl he was proposing to had been engaged before, [01:57:00] like, he’s now like, yep, no, I’m not okay.
We’re not okay. Yeah.
Bex: Um. Or, like, when he stormed into the station and let fly at Bobby because he was angry rather than using his words.
Alice: Yep.
Bex: Which then led him to get the rebar through the head. He’s obviously learned now that if he’s got big feelings, he needs to talk about them, lest he ends up with more rebar in other parts of his body.
Alice: Um, so yeah, so Chim says he wanted the date to be perfect to make up for the one that they didn’t get, but he thinks that’s asking a little too much of a bowl of pasta. And Maddie says she hates her apartment building. She hates walking out her front door, um, she tried going home, but every time, she just sees him laying there.
Ellen: Like, you get the idea that when, with the bowl of pasta comment, Chim’s trying to lighten, keep it [01:58:00] light, you know, and Maddie just comes out and says, I hate my apartment, and, you know, Chim looks taken aback, he’s like, oh. We’re going there. Yeah.
Bex: Okay. We’re going there. Like, alright, I see your, you hate your apartment building and I raise you that I freaked out my neighbor because they snuck up behind me when I was getting the mail.
Yeah. And I thought it was Doug. Yeah. And I was about to get stabbed again.
Ellen: And then Maddie breaks all of our hearts. By saying, “This is never going to be the same, whatever it is we were about to have, we’re never getting it back.” It’s like, Oh, no, don’t say that.
Bex: But Chimney agrees. He says, “No, we’re never going to get it back.” And Maddie’s like, “Okay, cool. I’m leaving.”
Ellen: Yeah. I’m out.
Bex: And literally just gets up.
Alice: Yeah. Literally just gets up over her pasta. And, um, but yeah, so Chim, like he sits there for a minute and then gets up.
Bex: Just like that, that, um, that fish thing where like his mouth’s flapping, but no words are coming out because he’s just like, he needs to say [01:59:00] something, but he can’t figure out what to say to, to make her stop.
Alice: Yeah. Um, yeah. So yeah, he rushes back before she leaves and says, “Hang on, hang on, hang on. We’re not saying goodbye. We just need a minute.” Hmm.
Bex: Maddie agrees. And she gives him this long, sweet kiss, and says, yeah, just a minute, and then walks out of his apartment.
Ellen: That’s the end of the episode! Every episode from now on is going to end with the smooches?
Bex: But there’s, there are always sad kisses, like it’s kisses by husband when you just survive being stabbed, or I’m going to kiss you and leave you.
Alice: Oh, Madney, I love you guys so much.
Ellen: Yeah, I really, I really liked this episode. Parts of it were like batshit insane,
Alice: but like, I like 9-1-1 when it’s batshit insane.
Like as long as it’s fun, batshit insane.
Ellen: It [02:00:00] was, it was well paced. Like I liked the, the pace of it was pretty good. It didn’t jump around too much. It did do a lot of jumping around, but it was within reason. It wasn’t just for no reason. Yes. And yeah.
Alice: Like the little montages were fun. Um, we got like the big emergency with the house and Eddie doing a Spider Man.
Yeah.
Bex: Which, if you guys are on, uh, TikTok, we’ve mentioned him before. I need to do a shout out to Fire Department Chronicles and his “green screening myself into TV shows.” Um, he, he does cover, um, The, um, Eddie crawling up the drain pipe and climbing across the roof scene and gives the, the spin of, of how that would go down in reality.
Um, and spoiler alert, it would not go down well if a firefighter in reality did that. So I will, I will link that in, uh, in our socials so you can [02:01:00] check out that particular, um, that video because it’s quite funny.
Alice: It’s great. It is funny watching, like, knowing the regulations we have in Australia, at least, because like anything, like if you’re above, I think it’s two meters, you have to be harnessed.
Um, and then there’s just Eddie, like,
Bex: Buck should have been harnessed as well.
Alice: He was, that’s how he didn’t fall off the.
Bex: No, he didn’t fall off the ladder because as he fell, he managed to grab the bottom of the ladder and hung on for dear life. Because then once he stopped swinging, he just dropped down to the ground to meet Bobby.
Alice: Oh, well, that’s awkward.
Bex: But he wasn’t harnessed in.
Alice: Well, he’s definitely, he’s definitely harnessed on the ladder later.
Bex: Yes, he obviously learned his lesson. He’s not going up on a ladder without a harness from now on. Or maybe Bobby’s learned his lesson to not let Buck up on the ladder without a harness.
Alice: As if it would be Bobby, it’d be Eddie. Now, babe, make sure you harness yourself in. We don’t want a repeat of last time.
Bex: But yes, Eddie doing the manoeuvre, he should have had a harness on. [02:02:00] Rather than just, you know, grabbing hold of the rope and holding on for dear life.
Ellen: Yeah, with his bare hands.
Bex: Yes. Yep.
Ellen: Anyway, we’re getting into the nitty gritty again. It’s gonna be okay.
Alice: Um, but yeah, it was, it was fun batshit insanity. Like the the plane made no sense, but it was a lot of fun.
Bex: But you know what? Compare my rant about the airplane to my rant about the train, um, there is a different level of, like, I’m not as angry about the batshit insanity in this episode as I am about in other episodes.
Yeah.
Ellen: I mean, the train thing was still a lot of fun, but also, like, No, it wasn’t! Completely implausible.
Alice: Oh, God.
Ellen: Okay, maybe not fun, but like, it was impressive for the outcome, I guess, I don’t know. Anyway, what shenanigans have we got coming up next time? [02:03:00]
Bex: Oh, we have a heist episode next week.
Ellen: Oh!
Alice: I was so surprised, I forgot that this was so early in the show.
Bex: The next episode is called “Oceans 9-1-1”, um, and the summary tells us that a going away party for a bank manager turns into an emergency and then a mystery as the first responders are accused of pulling off a daring heist. And it is so much fun.
Alice: It’s so much fun. Like, as, as we said, we like batshit insane when it’s fun.
This is so much fun.
Bex: It is.
Ellen: Excellent.
Alice: Like, I remember watching it going, what the fuck is happening and what show am I watching?
Ellen: I love episodes like that.
Bex: It’s so good. It’s great. Um, and it’s pretty low on the, um, the trigger scale too. Um, possible things to look out for is there are multiple characters that are going to have seizures.
So if you are not okay with watching people seize on screen, probably [02:04:00] avoid. We do have people trapped inside a bank vault, so if you’ve got a thing about claustrophobia, um, probably don’t watch. There is going to be minor, minor character death, which I think is kind of par for the course for this show.
Um, and we are going to have extended interactions with police. of varying intensities. So, you know, if you’re, you’re not okay with police, um, and we’re not talking Athena in this episode.
Alice: Oh yeah, like we’re, we’re talking full interrogation scenes. It’s amazing.
Ellen: Wow. Okay.
Alice: Ellen’s like, what is happening?
Ellen: Well, I mean, we’ve had stuff like that before, but if, if it’s warranting a trigger, then it must be
Bex: Look, I think, For those of, those who are listening, um, we have a document which basically people have collaborated and put together a list of all of the possible traumas and triggers that could happen in an episode [02:05:00] to varying degrees.
Um, so I’m sure that for some people watching interrogation scenes with police could be traumatic if you’ve had past experiences, especially negative experiences with police. Most of us probably wouldn’t consider that triggering, but. There are going to be some percentage of the population that that’s not going to be fun to watch.
So it goes on the list, and so I read it out.
Alice: That’s it. It’s always better to over over warn than under warn.
Bex: Mm-Hmm, , I are on the side of over tagging when it comes to shit like this.
Alice: That’s it. We, we are always on ao3, where the tags are bountiful. So
Bex: I would much prefer to, to say, oh yes, there are negative interactions with police.
And have people afterwards go, what are you talking about? That was fine. Then not mention it and be, you know, flame war’d. Like, why didn’t you tell me that I was gonna be traumatized by this scene with the police?
Alice: Yeah, that’s it. We want everyone to be as comfortable as possible [02:06:00] watching a very traumatic show.
Ellen: Yeah. All right. Um, well, let us know what you thought about the insanity in this episode.
Alice: Did you have as much fun as we did? Yes. You’ll notice we’re a lot more awake this week.
Ellen: Oh, we are awake this week. I don’t know how that’s happened. But anyway, uh,
Bex: It’s the Red Bull that I sculled before I started recording. I’m going to be up for hours.
Alice: It’s the one hour nap that I managed to have.
Ellen: I don’t remember what questions we asked in particular about LA residents this week, but if you know the answers to any of those, then you can leave us a comment on this episode’s post on, on, uh, thatweewooshow. com, or you can leave us a comment in Spotify, or you can send us an email, contact at thatweewooshow. com, or you can tweet at us on, or, you know, send us a message on social media. We’re on lots of different social media platforms. All of them are thatweewooshow.com. So.
Bex: Our DMs are open.
Ellen: They are. [02:07:00]
Alice: Yeah. Feel free to, like, scream about Season 8 at us on Twitter as well, because Bex and I are, um, up to date and so excited to get there, and we’re only in Season 2.
So, if you have things that you can’t wait for us to cover, um, feel free to scream at us in DMs, because we will scream back.
Ellen: Oh yeah. Um, the other thing that we probably need to start mentioning in these episodes is that we’re up to Episode 15. How many more episodes are there to go in this season? Is it 23?
Alice: Three more.
Ellen: Really? There’s only 18?
Alice: Yeah, so 16 and 17, sorry, 4, because 16 and 17 are a two parter.
Ellen: Okay. Oh yeah. Okay, so, at this point we can say, like, because we’re recording in advance, if you have feedback on season two that you would like to send us for us to read out in our wrap up episode, which isn’t that [02:08:00] far away now, send that into us.
You can, you know, email it or any of those other things I mentioned before, just get that in to us and we’ll include it in our list of things to talk about in our season two wrap up.
Alice: You heard, get that into us, folks. Back to Wee Woo show after dark.
Ellen: Get that into you. No.
Bex: Just make sure that if you are going to be talking about the season finale, uh, maybe mark it in whatever form of um, contact that you’re sending through to us as a spoiler so that Ellen doesn’t accidentally open it and read what is going to happen in it.
Ellen: Yeah, if you could say in your subject line or whatever that this is feedback for season two, then I will make sure I don’t look at it before, before um, I get all the way to the end.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: Cool.
Alice: But yeah, we’d absolutely love to hear your thoughts about, um, Eddie and Maddie’s first season.
Ellen: Yeah. It’s like so, so daunting.
Like I was just, I was like, I was thinking earlier today about, um, [02:09:00] thinking about the whole season. Like, it’s, it’s been so long since we started, like, it’s been 14 weeks.
Bex: That’s
Ellen: because Chim was
Bex: there bleeding for like three weeks.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s been weeks and weeks. And now I have to think about which one of these episodes is my favorite.
Like what? But yeah, um, that’s going to take a bit of research. I’m not going to binge the entire season to work that out, but you know. Or, maybe I will.
Alice: Just look at the summaries quickly.
Ellen: If I have quiet a couple of days at work. I’ll just sit there and work my way through the whole thing.
Uh, anything else we want to mention before we sign off?
Alice: No. No. Keen for a heist.
Ellen: Hey. All right. Thank you everyone for listening this week and we will talk to you next time about episode 15, “Oceans 9-1-1”. See you then.
Bex: Bye!
Alice: Bye!
Ellen (v/o outro music): 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. [02:10:00] You can call or text numbers in your country for help. Just google Crisis Support in your location to find out the number. If you enjoy our podcast, you can help us out by leaving us a review on Spotify or your preferred listening app, and by sharing our social media posts. Find out more at thatweewooshow.com.
[outtake]
My daughter wants to move to a house that has two stories for some reason. She’s like, she got this idea that having a house that has an upstairs is like the ideal. And
Bex: it’s not,
Ellen: and I’m just like, but it means you have to go upstairs.
Alice: Stairs are fine for like 30 seconds.
Ellen: And then I was like, we just moved here.
Like it’s been two years now, actually, since we moved into this house, but. If I, if I don’t have to move again for another, like, you know, 20 years, that would be fine with me because I hate moving houses.
Alice: It’s just, it’s the worst thing and it’s so, it’s [02:11:00] literally like one of the most stressful things in life.
Ellen: Absolutely.
Bex: Two story houses are fun, but like my kids just did their fire safety unit where firefighters came to their school and sort of told them how to stop, drop and roll and things like that.
Alice: Oh my God, like in this episode! We’re just living this episode out!
Bex: Except the firefighters went to the school, they didn’t go to a fire station. But one of the things they have to do is they have to write out their fire escape plan and they’ve got to draw a map of how they’re going to get out.
Ellen: Right.
Bex: And My kids were freaking out because their bedrooms are upstairs. Yeah.
Alice: Oh, out the window.
Bex: And they’re like, how do we get, well, they can’t because they, there’s like nowhere for them to go if they go out the window.
Alice: Oh.
Bex: And so they’re sort of freaking out and I’m like, just go back to school and ask the firefighter, how do I get out? If I am upstairs and the fire starts downstairs?
Alice: it’s fine. You just bang on the window and then move rooms every 30 seconds. [02:12:00]
Bex: Yeah, apparently that was the answer, and then wait for a firefighter to come crawling over the roof.
Ellen: And then stand up and breathe in the smoke.
Alice: Wait, wait for a hot firefighter to scale a drain pipe and you’ll be okay.
Ellen: Oh my god, yeah, that scene.
[next outtake]
Alice: If you’re in danger, call, in our case, triple zero, in their case, nine one one. Which brings us to five hours earlier, where. Oh, no, wait, I segued completely wrong then. I thought we were already in the, um, thingy. Okay, hang on. Let me think of a better segue.
Ellen: No, wait, do we get told it’s five hours earlier? I guess we must.
Bex: Yes. Yeah, we get a key. We get the title card and then we get a black screen and it says five hours earlier on the screen.
Alice: I thought we were already at the fire station though.
Bex: No, we’ve got to get through.
Alice: Yeah, like you’re told from a young age. Yeah. Like Bobby is right now. And then I was like, then I went down, I was like, Oh, I missed an entire scene.
Bex: That would have been a perfect segue, but we’ve got to get through the Buck and Maddie and the Chin
Alice: Chim and Hen. [02:13:00]
Bex: I was about to say Chin and Hem, but it’s Chim and Hen scene.
Alice: Okay. Hang on. Just cut out that entire segue. Cause that was terrifying. That was terrible. That was terrible.
Ellen: I don’t know. I thought it was pretty funny.
Bex: that’s, that’s going in the blooper reel.
Alice: I was so proud of that segue!
Bex: It was a good one!
[next outtake]
Alice: Guys, Mish is snoring and twitching. She’s so cute.
Ellen: My cats not in here tonight, so I don’t have the snoring.
Alice: Little feetsies are twitching. She had a big day.
Ellen: She’s probably chasing little sheepies.
Bex: She’s dreaming.
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