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 2 of the third season of 9-1-1, titled “Sink or Swim”.
A massive tsunami hits the Santa Monica Pier, placing Buck and Christopher’s lives in danger.
Content warnings for episode 3.02:
Tsunami, death by drowning, death by electrified water, multiple people including children at threat, car accident, blood, dead bodies in water.
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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 A B C show, 9-1-1. I’m Bex,
Alice: I’m Alice.
Ellen: And I’m Ellen.
Bex: And welcome everyone to this tsunami arc.
Ellen: Woohoo.
Bex: I have to say that, um, Alice and I were itching to get to this season and this storyline in particular.
Alice: So keen to get to this episode. Like, I’m so excited that Ellen’s finally watched it.
Bex: And I know Ellen, you had someone who was like chomping at the bit to watch this with you so they could see your reaction.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. We had a good time watching it. We sat down with a couple of glasses of gin and watched two, two episodes in a row and it was great. We [00:01:00] enjoyed that.
Bex: I am slightly worried though that we might have oversold it. So I would be interested at the end, uh, to find out whether we built this tsunami arc cup way too much and you’ve come, walked away disappointed, or you are just as excited with this episode, these two episodes as everybody else is.
’cause I think this is like the highest rated, the most watched episode.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: In 9-1-1.
Alice: Yeah, they’re, they’re like well known to be the best. Like this is 9-1-1 peak.
Ellen: When you open IMDb, these, these two episodes are the ones that come up at the top kind of thing.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: So
Bex: it’ll be interesting to see if the, if they live up to the hype. For you, anyway.
But before we get into discussing it, a quick thank you to all of our loyal listeners who have been listening to all of our episodes and who have been spreading the word about our little show by sharing each episode and our social media [00:02:00] posts. We really do appreciate you. So before we get into, uh, Episode two, “Sink or Swim”.
Uh, Alice, would you like to remind us what happened in the last episode?
Alice: Yeah. So last week on 9-1-1, season three started off with a bang with an exciting fire rescue, a pulmonary embolism, and a high stakes battle for control over blankets, and that was just what Buck got up to. Meanwhile, the 118 minus Buck dealt with an out of control speeding car and a bloody kidnapping, while Buck took his stepson Christopher for a fun day out at the Santa Monica Pier, where magic happen happens and nothing ever goes wrong.
Ellen: Nothing ever goes wrong.
Alice: No, it’s a real safe place, it’s fine.
Bex: Magic definitely happens.
Ellen: Before we get stuck into talking about this episode, we have to add that since we recorded this a week ago, there has since been an actual tsunami [00:03:00] warning resulting from an earthquake on the California coast. Who would have thought? How’s our timing?
Alice: Yeah, I went a little bit overboard with the promo for this episode.
Bex: We promise we did not manifest this. Although the number of tsunami related, um, suggestions that I’m getting from our streaming services, um,
Ellen: Oh, God.
Alice: Oh, it’s crazy. Bex and I have just been sending them back and forth, um, because like, obviously before we recorded, we didn’t want to be like, Hey, Ellen, this is the, the tsunami episode.
Um, but, but like Disney plus recommended, uh, like a thing on a tsunami. And then, um, I was watching something with my dad the other day and I was like, Bex, this is about another tsunami. Like what is happening?
Bex: Maybe we did manifest this.
Ellen: But no, it turned out that it was quite a strong earthquake, it was like 7 on the scale?
Bex: It was a 7. 0, yeah. But it was not the kind of [00:04:00] earthquake that can cause a tsunami, because apparently you need a very specific kind of seismic activity that results in a tsunami.
Ellen: Oh, okay.
Alice: Interesting, there you go.
Bex: Yeah, so.
Ellen: So they still issued a tsunami warning for like San Francisco and areas on the North California coast.
Bex: The US Geological Survey has this early warning system called ShakeAlert. And I think it’s just, it is an auto, it is automatically triggered that if the earthquake originates out in the ocean, it’s better to warn, and be wrong then not warn and risk catastrophic danger. It’s really interesting. The ShakeAlert app actually got alerts out to people in California and Oregon seconds before the earthquake hit the population.
Alice: Oh wow,
Ellen: that’s cool.
Bex: And they had enough warning about this tsunami that they were able to get residents to higher ground and they actually [00:05:00] evacuated a lot of the and got the animals up to higher ground. Um,
Alice: Oh, that’s amazing.
Bex: So there’s none of this standing on the pier, staring out at the water going, Oh, where did the water go?
In reality, as we said, um, as I think, I think we said during the episode, um, there would be prior warning about this happening. And in fact, they’re actually complaining now that they got too much warning because it took them almost an hour to cancel the tsunami warning. And people are complaining that they should have cancelled it earlier because of the time and panic and effort that went into preparing for a tsunami that never happened.
Alice: Yeah, fair. Well, I’m very glad everyone’s safe. Yes.
Ellen: Oh yes, thank goodness, yeah.
Alice: Um, there was no chopping off of fire captain’s arms or missing children, um, in the water.
Ellen: Thank goodness.
Bex: Santa Monica Pier was safe.
Alice: Santa Monica Pier was very safe considering it’s in, like, more south, [00:06:00] um, than San Francisco, I guess.
Bex: I barely know Australian geography. Don’t ask me to contend with American geography.
Ellen: Alright, well, on with the episode then. Okay, so this episode two, “Sink or Swim” first aired, um, on September 23rd, 2019. So, just about five years ago, just over five years ago, I want to say, have I done my maths correctly? Yes.
Bex: Yeah. Um, I’m not even going to try.
Ellen: I’m like, what year is it again? I don’t know. I lose track. After 2020, it’s all a blur.
So the official summary was just: A massive tsunami hits the Santa Monica Pier, placing Buck and Christopher’s lives in danger. That’s it. Um, and we have the ominous, uh, we, the only triggers are [00:07:00] big wave. No, we have a few more. We have, we have, we have a trigger here for teleportation.
I don’t think that’s really, I think you guys have just added that. Come on. We have a car accident. We have drowning, death by drowning and death by electrified water and multiple people and like children at threat and also dead bodies in the water. So there are, I think we’ve, we’ve just been looking before we started recording this episode at like Google street, street view and stuff to try and work out how this happened.
And I think there’s two ways we can get, we can approach this. Either we go into all the detail and nitpick every like element of this episode that is totally ridiculously crazy, like non realistic at all. Or [00:08:00] we just hand wave all of that, like suspend our disbelief and just roll with it.
Alice: It’s a big wave.
Bex: I am so glad that for once I am not the one getting hung up on the details. Because it’s usually me wanting to nitpick and decrying how unrealistic the episodes are. Um, but I think if we want to keep this episode, like under two hours, we should probably just hand wave and accept that everything that happened on screen happened and we’re not going to worry about the details.
I mean, some details we can get into.
Ellen: Yeah, I think we can do a bit of both. We can, we can hand wave some of it and accept that it’s actually a really well made episode. Like this
Alice: particular Like there are some visually stunning shots in this episode. Like, and I You always see the shots, and then when you watch the episode, it’s like, oh my god, they’re so well done.
Ellen: Yes, I was [00:09:00] very impressed with all of the, sort of, um, flowing water. I mean, I know that it was a lot, well, I will get into this later, but I know it was filmed in a, in a big swimming pool, basically, but the, the visuals of that, all of that water flowing through the streets of Santa Monica is just really amazing.
Bex: Quote unquote, Santa Monica.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, let’s get in let’s start at the beginning. Okay, so this episode opens with the a replay of the last few minutes of the previous episode. Um, I mean it’s only been a week but apparently we needed to refresh everybody on what happened. Like they’re, you know, Buck and um, Chris are happily playing all the games and going on the rides and doing all of those things again that we’ve already seen.
Before we get the actual, to the actual wave we have the, the other, um, fire crew and arriving on the scene.
Bex: Yeah, so we got a quick [00:10:00] glimpse of them in the last episode when Buck got distracted by them arriving and sort of watching longingly as they’re responding. Um, this week we get an extended version of that scene where we actually get to watch the members of the, this is the 136.
We get to see them, um, Pull out their defib and resuscitate the, uh, the poor dude in the mascot costume that has passed out from, I don’t know, heat stroke, dehydration, heart attack, uh, pick your poison. Um, and I think that they needed to do this extended scene because the members of the 136 become important in this episode, in this storyline.
So they needed to. Introduce them to the audience, probably a little bit more than they did last week. Otherwise the audience would just be looking at these members going, Uh, who are they? When did we see them before? This is where you saw them
Alice: before. Yeah, it’s also establishing, like, hey, there’s a, um, a paramedic and [00:11:00] therefore a firetruck on stage.
Ellen: But it also means that because the scene’s quite a lot longer, it’s a hell of a lot longer that Buck’s just been standing there while, um, Chris has been like, Buck! Buck! Buck!
Bex: Buck! Buck! Buck!
Alice: Buck! Poor Chris. Poor Chris is like actively on the floor being strangled by this bear at this point.
Ellen: I know, it’s a huge bear.
Alice: Buck’s just like, oh, look.
Ellen: Yes. But yeah, so we do get part of the what do you want to be when you grow up scene again. Uh, but then,
Bex: then we see it from, um, a different perspective. We see it through a drone camera.
Ellen: Oh yeah, that’s right. So we’ve gotta be introduced to a few more e extras that you know are going to be important later.
Charlie, who is the drone pilot? And she’s sitting on the pier next to a guy who, a guy called Reggie, who is [00:12:00] drawing her, like sketching her on a canvas thing.
Bex: Uh, though apparently flying drones on the pier is a big no no because we get the harbour master coming down to, um, to stop Charlie.
Ellen: Yeah, I’m not entirely sure why there’s a harbour master on the pier, because even though it’s a pier, there’s no ships or anything, like, I don’t think there are any ships that come up to this pier. It’s just a leisure pier, right?
Bex: I, yeah, I don’t, I mean, you’re the one that’s been there, so I’m going to defer to you.
Ellen: I was only there for a few hours, like, I don’t, and this was like over a year ago. Um. People of, people of LA.
Bex: They needed somebody to be looking out and who could hit the button to sound the siren.
Alice: They do have, um, Santa Monica Harbor Patrol and they have [00:13:00] an Instagram account.
Bex: Oh.
Alice: Um, so I guess he’s just like the boss of like the top guy from there, but yeah, it like, he’d be in charge of like life saving stuff, I guess, too.
And we see him like tell off the boat as well.
Ellen: But there’s, there’s a lot of marinas around there, you know, just to the south of there, like there’s canals and stuff. So maybe the harbour master is partially to do with that as well.
Alice: And if GTA five is correct, there’s a lot of, um, jet skis. So yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. One thing I was surprised at while I was there, now I’m going to like, Just be insufferable about actually having visited this place.
Um, when I was in Santa Monica, um, the beach is like really, really wide. Like it’s, it’s very flat. Um, I was, I was shocked by how wide this actual, the sand on this beach is just dead flat. And then you get the, the freeway, like the ocean road thing is like, [00:14:00] right there. And then there’s this cliff, which is like, a hundred feet high, like 30 meters or whatever.
And there’s like nesting in the top of the cliff in the dirt are these squirrels, like these ground squirrels type things? I was just like looking along going, why are there squirrels in the ground here? It was just bizarre. And I couldn’t go down to the beach because, um, I had my luggage with me because I was there on like a, you know, on my way home kind of thing.
I had to, you know, a day to kill, um, before. And I didn’t want to just wait at the airport all day. So I went, I got like a Uber to Santa Monica and walked around with my freaking luggage. Um, but I didn’t want, I couldn’t go down to the beach. And it, so my first thought when looking at this wave coming at the pier was that like, it would have to be a massive, like later it’s a washing through the streets, you know, and it would have been, have to be this huge wave to get up this cliff and [00:15:00] into the actual sub suburbia of Santa Monica itself.
But I think I’m looking at the maps and, and Googling all afternoon. I think that we,
Alice: we full on had Google maps open, comparing shots.
Ellen: I was like walking around the streets of LA in Google for a while. Um, I think that like people who actually have been there more than me and, or who live there can tell me if I’m, if this is correct, but the cliff actually kind of comes down and it goes down to sea level, like just near, on the other side of the pier, like on the South side.
So I think the washing of the water through there is a lot more realistic than it was in my head the first time I was watching this. I was like, this couldn’t happen. But no, I think, I think it’s correct. I mean it, later looking up information about tsunamis and whether anything like this big would actually hit LA, probably not.
Like they were saying that the only way a wave that big could actually hit the coast there, [00:16:00] is if like a meteorite hit the ocean. Um. or like a massive, massive earthquake. The one, the one that was, yeah, that, that, the, the article that I can, I can put it into the post, but it said that if there was a really big earthquake near Alaska, a tsunami could hit LA, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near as big as the one that they show in this episode.
Bex: Yeah, so that they said that, um, in the episode a little bit later, we get a, uh, we over hear a news report saying that it was like an, an 8. 5 earthquake hit off the coast of Alaska. So it’s like somebody started to get the research heard. Well, if an earthquake off the coast of Alaska, and then just went, okay, cool, we’re going to run with that.
That’ll
Alice: do. Close enough.
Bex: Didn’t actually stop to hear whether the, what size of the wave would be, or that if the earthquake hit, they, people would notice and [00:17:00] they would have several hours in order to alert the residents of Santa Monica and get everybody evacuated up to higher ground.
Alice: Oh yeah, if anyone’s worried, like this, it wouldn’t happen like this.
Like they, they would know that a big wave was coming.
Ellen: Yeah, it could, it could happen, but, but there would be some warning, like we would get warning that it was happening.
Bex: Number one, the wave would not be that big, I think.
Ellen: That’s beside the point because this is like a really awesome looking scene. It looks amazing.
This freaking huge wave is coming and all the people on the pier like just stand there and look at it for ages. It’s like. They’re just looking at this wave, and oh, Buck turns around and looks at it. And then he just hoiks Christopher over his shoulder and they run for it.
Alice: Hang on, we’re missing a scene.
Ellen: What are we missing?
Bex: Uh, the Charmed Life.
Ellen: Oh, yeah. Okay.
Bex: Which, I’m, I mean, I’m happy to just say, hey, earlier on we met these guys in a boat, but let’s [00:18:00] just keep going. Cause you were on a roll.
Ellen: Well, I mean, we can, we can rewind a moment. So yeah, there is a boat, there is a retired looking aged looking. I mean, that’s not a mean thing to say, and they’re not really elderly, but they’re old, they look older, um, and they’re getting married on a boat off the coast and I can’t even remember what they said to each other because I was too focused on the wave bearing down on the, uh,
Bex: Apparently the plan is that, um, Chuck and Adele, who are the, uh, new soon to be newlyweds, are going to sail around the world in this tiny little pleasure craft.
Um, they have their son on board. I don’t know whether they’re planning to take their son around the world with them, or whether they’re gonna, like, kick him off before they go. Um
Alice: Well, it’s her son.
Bex: Yes, her son, but Yeah.
Alice: Yeah. Um, and he seems very dubious [00:19:00] of the groom, which,
Bex: well, I can imagine.
Ellen: Yeah, a bit territorial, maybe.
Bex: Yeah. Um, they’ve also got a, um, some kind of celebrant on board with them, so I don’t know if he’s going around the world with them as well, or if they are planning on, like, kicking him off when they kick
Ellen: Yeah, they’re gonna drop the boys off before they head off.
Bex: Yes. Uh, but the, the issue is that the Charmed Life is very, very close to the pier.
Alice: Yeah, so the Harbour Master sort of tells them off and tells them to go away.
Bex: Yes, and that is, uh, why he is looking out the window and can see the massive wave that is building. Um, and then we get that amazing special effects scene of the camera pulling back. and showing the pier with all of its supports and the rocks, uh, underneath and just [00:20:00] absolutely no water.
And we hear Christopher asking, where did all the water go? And the camera does a 360 and that’s where all the water went. This massive wave is building. Um, so the harbour master smashes his hand on an emergency button and this siren starts to wail and everybody Starts running.
Alice: Yeah, we get a quick look of like the Ferris wheel as well.
There’s a couple at the, in the car at the very top of it, which, you know, might come back later. The people in the boat scramble to get in the cabin. But the real, like, climax is definitely Buck and Christopher.
Ellen: Oh, yeah.
Bex: Yeah, he literally grabs Chris and throws him over his shoulder as they run. And it’s Actually looks like Oliver is running with Gavin.
It doesn’t look like he’s got the pantyhose dummy over his shoulder. It looks like he’s, they actually let him pick up the kid and run with [00:21:00] him.
Alice: Yeah. So I actually found, um, cause Oliver was interviewed a lot about this opening. Cause obviously it’s a very
Bex: If you’re about to tell me that he wasn’t carrying Gavin, um, please don’t tell me cause I want to live in my little Delulu land.
Alice: Um, no, it will, it was, It was a mixture of Gavin and Gavin’s stunt double. It was not a dummy. Um, but a lot of it was Gavin.
Bex: That’s a lot of physical stunts for Gavin to be doing, but
Alice: Yeah, right, like, um, Oliver, like, basically says, like, you know, he had, he was trusted with this child, and He’d, like, they’d do a cut and he’d be like, “Oh my God, Gavin, are you okay?”
Gavin’s like, “Are we going again?” Like, Gavin just took everything in his stride. Um, so clearly, like, he’s got a lot of trust in the crew and Oliver, which is amazing. And he, like, he says that it definitely put that realism in there because he was literally like, I can’t put this child under water.
Bex: Yep. It, it obviously, [00:22:00] like, changed the way he ran because he couldn’t just sprint flat out because he’s got a eight year old.
Alice: So it wasn’t just a dummy, it was actually, like, he was actually holding a child.
Bex: Whether it was specifically Gavin or not. Okay, so cool, so he was actually carrying a person, it was not the pantyhose dummy that they gave to Kenny.
Alice: Correct.
Bex: Excellent. There, there is, I don’t know if it’s this episode, no, it’s the next episode where somebody else is carrying around quote unquote Christopher, and it is quite clearly the pantyhose dummy.
Ellen: Ah, yeah. Oh, yeah,
Bex: yeah.
Alice: Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, no, Oliver does an amazing job and definitely helps with the realism.
Bex: Yes.
Alice: I have so many fun facts about this, like this next two episodes.
Bex: Excellent, bring them on. I, I am just, for the most part, I’m trying to stay sort of within the, the episode itself. I’m not really looking outside at what the actors did or what the writers did or, I love hearing the [00:23:00] outside, the inside baseball side of stuff, but I’m not purposely looking for it.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: But if you know it, throw it at me.
Alice: Absolutely.
Bex: Yeah, so, um, So Buck runs with Christopher. For some reason there is a game booth right in the middle of the pier, where there are no other kind of sideshow booths. Which is, you know, really convenient because it’s somewhere that, um, Buck can dump Christopher over, hoping that the, the little wooden stand will be enough to protect him from the massive wave that’s about to hit.
Uh, spoiler alert, it’s not. But, you know, he’s trying. He’s trying. He’s trying.
Ellen: He should have, like, Later, I mean, in hindsight, he should have just kept hold of Christopher. Rather than
Bex: He should have just kept running and kept holding him.
Ellen: Yeah, anyway.
Bex: One of my, one of my favorite shots of this is the, um, [00:24:00] They go back up and we check on the harbormaster who has just done absolutely nothing.
He’s hit the siren. And then he just hunkers down.
Ellen: Oh, there’s not really much he can do.
Bex: No, but that’s the point. He’s like, he’s right up there, and he realises the absolute futility. There is no point running. He’s not going to survive this, so he just puts his back to the wave, closes his eyes, and it’s quite clear that he’s like, praying.
And he just waits for the wave to hit him.
Alice: And then the wave hits.
Bex: And then the wave hits, and oh my god.
Alice: This is… And, like, this is the second, I guess, because the first, like, iconic shot is obviously the wave going. This, I’d say, is the second, um, where the wave’s coming in and Buck turns and vaults over the stand where he’s thrown Chris, and the water goes behind him.
Yeah. And it’s just Yes. Like, it’s incredible. Like, it’s so hard to explain, because it’s just, like, a lot of water and Buck just, [00:25:00] like, jumping.
Yeah, like, it’s this feeling of dread. Because like, it’s like, how’s Buck gonna get out of this? Because he is literally in the path of a tsunami.
Ellen: Yeah, and the next extended kind of, I don’t know how long it goes for, I didn’t count how many seconds.
Um, that’s, like, that’s Bex’s job. Um, we have, um, the
Bex: Only when it bores me.
Ellen: Well, it went for quite a while, um, of Buck getting It did, yes. He’s basically flailing around underwater for ages, getting tossed around by this water.
Alice: Oh, the way they do this, just, I, this whole, like, first half, it’s, it’s so good.
Ellen: It’s pretty terrifying.
Alice: Because he’s getting, like, kicked around and you Like, you think you know which way’s up.
Ellen: Yeah, they keep showing, like, the underneath of the surface, but upside down. So it looks like down is up and whatever. And then Buck is, like, [00:26:00] coming to the surface, but he’s upside down. It was just, it was very clever.
Alice: Yeah, he, like, pushes his face into the bottom of the screen. And that’s where up is, like that. So it really does a really good job of showing the disorientation. And anyone who’s been in water and been in the surf knows that feeling of when you get pushed over by a wave and you’re just like, yeah, which way’s up?
Yeah. Yeah the ground. Yeah
Bex: He finally does make it to the surface
Ellen: yeah, he’s in the buildings that are at the back of the pier like got swept all the way to the shore and He’s found some string lights to hold on to which are quite a ways above the ground, if it’s the ones that we were actually looking at on Google.
Alice: Yeah, they’re like, well, they’re above car level, so.
Bex: Which just goes to show how much water.
Alice: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Bex: Because, I mean, there’s another shot later [00:27:00] where, um, the boats are, like, little rescue boats are jetting under the big arch, and it’s almost like they have to duck to get under that arch. That’s how much water there is.
So yeah, he’s, he’s up quite a ways and, uh, very luckily he starts screaming for Christopher and Christopher is not that far away.
Alice: Yeah, he’s also screaming for Buck as well.
Bex: The gods must have been smiling on them that they got separated but not by that much. Because God knows where Christopher could have ended up.
Alice: Yeah. Yeah, right. He’s only a little. So yeah, Chris is clinging to a power pole or like a traffic light pole and there’s car alarms blaring. Buck’s screaming. Like, he puts everything into this, like, whole episode arc. So yeah, Buck’s screaming, he’s like, don’t move, um, he lets go of the lights and starts, like, going with the current, I guess?
Because he’s going towards Christopher, but he [00:28:00] doesn’t quite reach for his hand. So they just miss each other, and then Buck manages to get himself on top of something, end. Chris’s grip loose loosens and gets washed down and buck manage to, manages to jump back in the water and grabs him and so they float down.
And again, this is Oliver actually holding a human and a lot of it you can see close up and it’s actually, it’s definitely Gavin. ’cause a lot of it is close up shots in this.
Bex: Yeah. They wouldn’t have been able to get away with it. Not unless they went in and like surgically altered someone’s face and they don’t have that much money.
Um, in the show to do that level of CGI effects.
Alice: But yeah, so then they, then they pass an engine truck and of course, Buck immediately swims for the
Ellen: A firetruck. Well, I mean, to be fair, it’s probably the, it’s the highest, like, it’s a really good height for them to grab onto and climb on. Uh, just lucky that they happened to be going past it and they could, he [00:29:00] like throws Christopher up on top of it and then climbs up himself.
Alice: Well, there’s a pile of debris first that’s like rushing towards him, so he tosses Chris to safety, then dives under the water to let the debris wash over him, and then gets up and climbs onto the engine truck with Chris.
Bex: We get an overhead shot and we see that it’s the engine truck of the 136.
Alice: Yep, and the camera just keeps sort of pulling back and You can see the Ferris wheel in the background, and you can see how far they’ve been put, like, pushed inland.
Um, because they’re a good couple of streets back from the, like, the opening of the pier.
Bex: Yeah, when I was watching this episode, I’m, I’m writing up my notes, and I’m going, Okay, Christopher’s clinging to a power pole. Wait, how is Christopher clinging to a power pole? They were down on the pier, and it was like, Oh, that’s how far they’ve come.
We’re actually in [00:30:00] the middle of the streets now. Yeah. Or quote unquote streets, because as we’ve discovered on Google Maps, the streets in this version of Santa Monica do not match with the streets of real life Santa Monica. But that’s okay, we are going to
Ellen: Let’s just not worry about that.
Alice: To be fair, they were, they were washed so far that they’re in Mexico now.
Bex: We’re going to suspend our disbelief and we’re just going to continue. Because yes,
Alice: fun fact, um, yeah, it’s all done in the same water tank that they did the Titanic in.
Ellen: Yeah, it’s, it’s very clever.
Alice: So they flew the whole cast and crew down to Mexico to film.
Bex: Thankfully they’re not having Buck and Chris on any doors.
Ellen: Well, I mean, the thing with the Titanic is it was just out in the middle of the ocean with some icebergs. I mean, they weren’t in the suburban streets, were they? So they’ve done a great job of, um, transplanting that ocean into the middle of the city.
Alice: They really have. It’s, it’s amazing.
Bex: And now [00:31:00] we’re going to do one of the, um, the time jumps that 9-1-1 likes to do, uh, because we’re going to go back 20 minutes and we’re going to go and get mani pedis with the Grant women.
Ellen: Ugh, this was such a, like, 180, I was like, what the hell’s going on? One minute we’re in, in death’s door with the, Buck and Chris.
Bex: I did like the transition though, because we’ve had, um, Buck and Christopher in the swirling water of the tsunami, and then it cuts to swirling water, but it’s a foot spa.
Ellen: yeah.
Bex: Apparently, Athena and May have a monthly mani pedi appointment. And they’re talking with their, um, their technician about how Athena is going to miss this, because, um, May is She’s starting college applications and she’s going to be heading off to college soon. Although she’s freaking out about it [00:32:00] because, um, she still needs letters of recommendations and one of the applications for one of the colleges is completely different from the others so she can’t just copy and paste what she did for one college.
Alice: And she hasn’t finished her essay.
Bex: Because the essay is supposed to be about something important, and she has not done anything important yet. Just wait 30 minutes, honey, and you’ll have the perfect subject for your essay.
Alice: I know, it’s, it’s a definitely thing in TV shows where it’s just like, Oh, my life’s been so boring. What do I write about in college? And then all of a sudden they have this life changing event. So if you’re getting ready to go to college, maybe don’t say that aloud because
Bex: This conversation about May not having had anything important happens to her is in the car, obviously on their way back from the appointment.
And They telegraph what’s going to happen so obviously, because they’re [00:33:00] cutting backwards and forwards between Athena and May as they’re talking, always making sure that we see the passenger window of each, behind each of the women’s head, um, and apart from the fact that the green screen is terrible, um, you’re just going back and forth and back and forth and I’m just waiting for the, for somebody to get hit.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: And of course. May does. They’re having a conversation and then all of a sudden a car comes out of nowhere and T bones May’s side of the car.
Ellen: So the 118 are a Where
Bex: Ed, where Eddie still thinks that, um, Buck and Chris are having a lovely day.
Ellen: He’s blissfully, like, they’re all blissfully unaware of anything that’s happening to Buck or Chris this entire episode.
So, um, Hen wants to know how “Operation Buck Up Buck” is going. And Eddie put, Eddie shows him these adorable photos of, um, the two of [00:34:00] them having fun at the pier, presumably. Right.
Bex: Well, they’re having pancakes. I don’t know where the pancake parlor is.
Alice: Um, and the, the photo is so cute. And the text caption just says he wants pancakes.
So we’re doing pancakes and I’m just like, Oh my God. So cute. I love Buck so much.
Bex: But they’re having this conversation in like ankle deep water. . And Bobby sort of wanders over and makes the dad joke of, “Oh, Hey, who left the hydrant open?” Um, and at that very minute they get, oh, Eddie gets an emergency alert text message saying that there is a tsunami warning, so they had, but if this is 20 minutes before the wave, then why did nobody else get this and therefore start evacuating the pier?
Ellen: Is this 20 minutes before?
Alice: Because I don’t think we’re at 20 minutes before now.
Ellen: No, no, 20 minutes before was the, was Athena.
Alice: Was Athena and the nail.
Ellen: So these guys must [00:35:00] be
Alice: This is back to, um, like current time I guess.
Bex: This is current time? So this is not happening concurrently with the Athena May storyline?
Alice: Well Uh, it’s happening concurrently with their car crash. Because they’re more inland, so the water takes longer to get to them.
Ellen: Yeah, okay, that kind of makes sense, because
Bex: But still, they’re getting that warning just as the tsunami’s hitting them, right?
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Which kind of negates the fact that it’s a warning, it’s more just an alert, this has happened?
Yeah.
Alice: Yeah, it’s like, hey, by the way, a tsunami happened.
Ellen: You’ve got no time to get anywhere. Like, if you’re on the coast, you’re screwed. Yeah.
Alice: If you’re at the pier,. Maybe, um, seek help, because you’re probably underwater.
Bex: If you’re at the pier, your phone is probably dead and you’re not getting the text message, so.
Alice: That too.
Bex: Unless you’ve got one of those magical phones that the guy who calls Linda, um, has.
Alice: I mean, to be fair, my phone’s waterproof. [00:36:00]
Ellen: Yeah, mine is too. I don’t know if it would be. like, be able to keep a call on, like, being actually underwater. But I hope I never have to find out. Um,
Alice: I have mine in the shower all the time, so it’s probably fine.
Ellen: Well, we only get a tiny snippet of what the 118 are doing because we’re going back to Athena and May.
Alice: Yeah. Basically, it’s a snippet long enough to be like, to, for Eddie to think that Buck and Chris are just having a great time.
Bex: And they are nowhere near the pier.
Alice: Yeah. Yes.
Ellen: But when they pull, the, the camera sort of pulls up.
Alice: Is that the Athena mobile?
Ellen: Yes. The Athena mobile. She can’t open the doors because there’s like, cars on either side of them. So she pulls this little metal hammer out of the, out of the glove box and smashes the window with it.
Alice: Um, these are actually really good to have, by the way. You can get these and um, and a thing that like cuts the seatbelt as [00:37:00] well.
Ellen: Oh yeah.
Alice: And they’re really good to have in your car, just in case.
Bex: In case of an emergency.
Alice: So if you do, yeah, if you do see one, um, grab one,
Bex: Um, if you’re in Australia, they’re like 25 dollars at Super Cheap Auto to get the proper, the proper metal one. Don’t get the, it’s like an orangey plastic one that you can get, which are fucking useless.
Alice: Yeah, don’t get that crap.
Bex: Get the, get the fully metal one. Um, and keep it in your glove compartment so that in event of emergency that you need to evacuate your vehicle and the doors are not working, you can smash through the windows.
Alice: Um, but the thing is, don’t do it the way that Athena does. Athena just sort of does it, like, in the middle of the windscreen.
Um, you do it down the bottom front, basically. So, like, if you do it at the, um, at the bottom, it’ll crack the whole window.
Ellen: She does, she does her window, her door window.
Alice: Yeah, yeah, so you do it the door window, but you do it like in the corner, and then it will crack the whole thing.
Bex: Near the mirror thingy?
Alice: Yeah, near the mirror, [00:38:00] or the other side, like just in the corner.
Bex: Oh, just in a corner somewhere.
Alice: Yeah, that’s where you’re told to do it.
Ellen: Thank you. Thank you for that PSA.
Alice: Funnily enough, she does it properly the next time she does it. Because she does it again later on in the scene and she does it properly, um, but this time she just sort of does it in the middle, but yeah, you do it sort of in the corner and it should spiderweb and then you can break it.
Um, you can, if you don’t have the hammer, you can take the headrest off your car, um, like off your car seat as well and put that in the middle and then like smack it with your fist. But yeah, you just want something like blunt, um, but like, hard. Because
Ellen: that’s what she said.
Bex: I do like that, um, May makes a comment looking, watching her mother smash out the window, like, “Where did you get that?”
And Athena’s just like, “Your stepfather.” Bobby has made sure that they’re all safely acquitted, safely kitted out.
Ellen: So dad coded. [00:39:00] Um, so we, so she climbs out of the car and climbs onto the bonnet of the car next, that hit her. And, but there’s like, I don’t know, like 20 cars all just piled up. I’m like, someone said someone ran a red light, but if the signals were out, did everyone just not brake?
Like why has everyone hit each other?
Alice: Yeah. There’s, it’s a huge pile up.
Ellen: There’s a lot of cars involved here.
Alice: Like it’s massive.
Bex: And then, yeah. Everybody has suddenly forgotten how to drive simultaneously.
Ellen: Like they’re not on a highway or anything. It’s just, a… An intersection, like, with lights.
Bex: I, yeah, I think this is another one we’re just going to have to hand wave and go, yes, this, this is what happens.
I was more laughing at the fact that, um, as. Athena is about to get down off the car that she has climbed up onto. This random guy just walks past, grabs her hand, helps her down, and then disappears again. [00:40:00]
Alice: He’s um, he’s actually Cake Lady’s husband.
Bex: It’s like they’ve got, they’ve got Angela up on the top of the car and she’s just like, I’m not jumping down. Are you kidding? I’m 60 years old. Like, okay, fine, we will get somebody to help you down.
Alice: Um, the emergency tools, by the way, are currently on sale for seventeen dollars fifty at Super Cheap Auto. But is that? Um, but the sale ends on the 8th of December.
Ellen: Yeah, I was going to say, is that a Black Friday thing? Like, we’re not going to be able to get it by the time people hear this?
Alice: Yeah, I think it’s, I’m sorry guys, maybe look out for the Boxing Day sales.
Ellen: It’s a good stocking stuffer, I suppose.
Alice: But it’s, it’s a full, It’s a 16 in one multi tool emergency hammer.
So it’s got a hammer on one side and like the thing to break the glass on the other. It’s got the seatbelt cutter. It’s got screwdriver heads. Plus a can opener, which is obviously, you know, important. Um, and then a couple of different, like, there’s like a file, like a metal file and then two different knives.
Ellen: Prepared for anything.
Bex: [00:41:00] Sweet, I’m picking up one of those.
Alice: I know, right? I’m going to go buy one. Yeah. 9-1-1, saving lives.
Bex: This episode is not sponsored by Super Cheap Auto, but hey, Super Cheap Auto.
Ellen: We’ll take some free emergency hammers, that’s fine.
Alice: I feel like we need to put their jingle in the episode.
But yeah, if you’d like to send us some multi tools, Super Cheap Auto, please. Yeah. Yep. We’ll take them.
Ellen: Meanwhile, in LA, um, May gets a, Athena’s trying to order everybody around because, you know, she’s in charge, like she likes to be in charge, apparently. We’ve established this already.
Alice: She’s a cop. Someone’s got to be.
Ellen: Yeah. And there’s a, there’s a down, there’s a power line down and it’s sparking everywhere. So it’s live. Um, and she’s yelling at everyone to get away from it. But there’s a woman calls out that she’s called 9-1-1 but they’ve got [00:42:00] her on hold. So there’s something going on.
Bex: You can just see Athena’s, Athena’s face just drop and like, oh shit, something terrible has happened if 9-1-1 is putting people on hold.
Alice: Yeah. Like, what do you, what, what hold music do you recommend on one of those?
Bex: That’s what I want to know!
Alice: Like, is it like, the Telstra one that’s like, doo doo, doo doo, doo doo.
Bex: As long as it’s not the Centrelink one.
Alice: Or is it like, Is it like 80s pop? And it’s just like
Bex: Hold on! I’m coming!
Ellen: That must be it.
Alice: Or it’s Phil Collins, because They’re still vibing with last, last week. Well, earlier that week, I guess, because it’s a pretty smooth continuation from last week’s episode, but um Mm. Yep.
Ellen: Uh. [00:43:00] May gets a notification on her phone that, or she gets the tsunami warning thing.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: Except that apparently she also knows that it took out the pier, so maybe it was just the news.
Alice: She’s on Twitter. Let’s be real.
Bex: She’s jumped onto social media. Then we cut to dispatch center and we see how busy they are that they have had to put people on hold because they are flat out answering calls.
Alice: Um, yeah, so Linda’s on the phone with someone and is telling them to keep climbing because the parking structure has, uh, five levels. Um, there’s another dispatcher who says that they’ll send a unit as soon as they can get into the area, but it might take a while. This episode had a distinct lack of Josh.
Bex: I wonder where Josh was through all this.
Ellen: Yeah, you’re right. Maybe he wasn’t on shift. But,
Alice: yeah, he’s got the day off.
Bex: But, do you think, though, that They would see that happening and they wouldn’t just all [00:44:00] like converge and go like yes, it’s my day off, but I know that things are gonna get bad, so I’m gonna come down and pitch in anyway.
Alice: Nah.
Bex: Now you think Josh is just at home on the couch just watching this go down.
Ellen: He might be on holiday or something, might be somewhere else.
Alice: Bit of behind the scenes, it’s um, literally Black Friday, like the shopping day as we’re recording this. Um, there were so many stores that were like calling out for help and I decided to go do a store tear down instead where I didn’t have to deal with any customers and just ripped down shelves all day.
It was great. Um, yeah, I’m just like, Oh, what’s that? Stores are busy. Oh, what a shame. I’m going to go not do that.
Ellen: Well, I mean, the thing with 9-1-1 is that they’ve only got a certain number of spots that people can sit and answer calls, right? So the more people are there, it doesn’t make it better.
Bex: I’m sure that they could wheel out their little trolley full of, you know, landlines and plug those in like they did when the power went out.
Alice: Josh should be there with [00:45:00] a clipboard and a map having the best time. And everyone’s like, “Dude, it’s just the coast. Like it’s just the pier.” And he’d be like, “Yeah, but look at all the pins on the pier!”
Bex: I missed Josh this episode. That’s my takeaway. Yeah. I wish there had been Josh, um, but we, we, we have Maddie, um, and we’re going to have Maddie.
have a call with a dude named Jonas, um, which is an incredibly sad call.
Ellen: Oh my god, can we fast forward through this part because I hate this. Urgh, it was awful to watch.
Bex: Yeah, I, this call is, is so sad because it is so, it’s so futile. Like we are, Maddie cannot save this guy. We, the audience is fully aware that we are just going to be watching this guy die.
Uh, because there is nothing that anybody can do to save him.
Ellen: Yeah, he’s trapped inside his, the, the, the attic, like, the ceiling space.
Bex: Yeah, because Maddie told, Maddie told him to go look for a window [00:46:00] and he went, uh, you know what, I’m gonna go up to the attic instead. And he gets trapped up there and despite all of Maddie’s best efforts, he’s unable to get out of the attic and the water level rises, and he drowns.
Ellen: Yeah, and Maddie just has to listen to it.
Bex: Maddie just has to listen to it. And it’s, it’s just like the kicker is that this guy survived Everest and yet his own house is his undoing. And then no sooner than his call drops the phone rings again and Maddie has to suck it up and answer another call.
Ellen: Yeah.
Thankfully that we don’t hear what that call is because it was probably someone. The people call 9-1-1 for the stupidest reasons, but in this case there was probably someone else who was drowning in their apartment.
Bex: Yes. Although I do want to note that it’s very poetic that as soon as Jonas [00:47:00] drowns, the, the, the, the display on Maddie’s computer says that the call fails.
So his phone cuts out as soon as he dies. But later on, Linda has, A caller who drowns, but the phone stays, the call stays open for 20 minutes.
Alice: Yeah, because Linda’s is an iPhone and Jonas has a non waterproof Android.
Bex: Well, I was, I went back and I watched that scene again, but without the volume, so I didn’t have to listen to it, um, to see if maybe he was on a landline, but no, he was on a mobile phone.
So, um, yeah. Like, I get the poetry and the symbolism of the call failing as soon as his life fails, but it just, it’s inconsistent with what they go and say later on.
Alice: Anyway, it’s very sad.
Bex: It’s very sad.
Alice: He physically can’t get anyone to him, he can’t physically go out.
Ellen: And Maddie has like a perfect tear that spills over and runs down her face.
Bex: Oh no, now the Supernatural musical is [00:48:00] playing in my head.
Ellen: You’re welcome.
“A perfect man-tear…” Okay, we have Eddie jumping out of the 118, the truck. Chim and Hen are climbing up to have a look at what’s happening. And I was trying to work out where they were. This is when I started looking at Google Maps. Because there’s like
Bex: This is when I started trying to work it out too.
Ellen: There’s actually road signs there that say like the Pacific Highway or whatever it’s called. Now I’ve forgotten the name.
Bex: I think it’s the Pacific Coastal Highway, it’s the PCH. I think they’re on the PCH, but it doesn’t kind of, I couldn’t find that particular street sign.
Ellen: Yeah, so there’s an exit there for, um, 5th and 4th street, streets. And so I think it’s like right near, like just inland from the pier.
Like it’s not far, it’s only like a kilometre or something. But they’re looking down. into like where all the water has [00:49:00] reached, like from the waves. So they’re, they’re up on the highway near an exit. And I couldn’t, like when I was looking around in Street View, I couldn’t see like this exact view, but you know, it must be around there somewhere.
Bex: They’re up high somewhere, they’re as close as they can get to the pier, um, and they’ve set up a staging. So all of the, the trucks have stopped on this little section of the highway.
Alice: Um, but we get some exposition where basically Hen asks if, like, one wave did all of this and it’s corrected that they’ve had two so far and they’re expecting another four or five before it starts to recede.
Um, and they’re commandeering everything that’ll float.
Bex: We also get told that, um, there were four firehouses in the, the path of the wave, and all but the 136 have checked in. Um, because the 136 were down on the pier. Yeah. Which we are, like, the audience, we already knew that because we’ve seen their engine [00:50:00] truck.
So we knew. But they’re apparently, they don’t know where the crew of that truck are.
Alice: Um, speaking about 136’s engine truck, we cut back to Buck and Chris.
Bex: This is so cute. They’re, they’re huddled up on the top of the engine truck and, and Buck’s checking with Chris and asking if he’s okay. And the line reading of this is just adorable because Chris is like, yeah, I took surfing lessons.
Ellen: I love how they keep bringing that up.
Bex: They’re freaking expensive surfing lessons. I’d be bringing them up as often as I could too!
Alice: Right? Um, so yeah, Buck sort of says to Chris, like, maybe you can teach me., And he sort of has a look around and Chris is like, well, we have a firetruck.
Ellen: Yeah, it’s like up to its doors in water, but yeah, they have a firetruck.
Alice: They have a [00:51:00] firetruck, but at least like it’s, it’s cute that they’re both comforted by the familiarity, I guess. Yeah. Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. So this is where Buck starts, um, being the big damn hero. Yeah, he keeps seeing people who need rescuing and he, he says, like, not long ago this man was in the hospital after an embolism, like, he should not be doing this.
Alice: Literally, it was like two days ago.
Ellen: Yeah, he should not be doing this, um, but he is.
Bex: Well, he, I mean, he told Bobby that out there helping people is where he’s supposed to be. So that’s what he’s doing.
Ellen: I mean, he has no choice. He sees someone in need. He’s going to go help them, right? Like he,
Bex: he does have a choice. He could just stay there and protect Christopher and wait for a rescue, but that’s not who Buck is.
He, I don’t think he could, he could live, I don’t think he could live with himself if he let people get hurt when he could possibly have done something to do it.
Ellen: That’s right. He doesn’t even think twice. I don’t [00:52:00] think he just goes for it.
Bex: I think that there’s like a tiny, tiny second thought because he’s like, do I stay with Chris or do I help these people? And he sort of, there’s this little micro processing where he goes, no, Chris is safe here. I can go. Yeah. Sort of convinces himself, Chris is safe. I can go.
Alice: Um, so he puts the ladder down that’s on the back of the truck and uses that to like shimmy his way along.
He’s also holding, I think it’s the hose.
Bex: Yeah, he gets the hose because he uses the hose to, to make a, uh, like a lifeline across the street. Yeah. With the idea that people that are being, that the woman that is screaming for help up the, the other end of the street can get washed down and as she passes under, she can grab hold of the rope or Buck can kind of monkey walk his way out and catch people as they’re being washed down.
Ellen: Mhm. [00:53:00] Yeah, it’s a good idea. Um,
Bex: yeah, and it works because no sooner has he got that woman up onto the, uh, the engine truck than about 10 other people start screaming for help. It’s like they’ve been sitting there waiting for a sign that help is on the way and they see Buck and they go, okay, cool.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Now’s our time.
Alice: While he’s like making his way over to, there’s a guy trapped in a car nearby as well.
Bex: Yeah, and the, I love that Buck’s like, “I will come back for you, I promise.”
Alice: I’ll come back, I’ll come back.
Bex: You’re safe, I gotta go get her first, and then I’ll come and get you, and then I’m not, oh shit, I’m gonna get these people first, but I will come back for you, I promise.
Then we come back to 9-1-1 dispatch, where we get the news report, um, because Maddie is in the break room watching the news, and we find out that it was an 8. 9 earthquake off the coast of Alaska. We don’t get the full, um, the full sentence, but they are going on and they’re about to [00:54:00] say that that was magnitudes greater than the 7. 5 earthquake that hit LA last year.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I feel like if LA had been hit by this massive tsunami, then a lot of other places around the world would have like, across the Pacific would have been hit by big waves as well. Like,
Alice: No, it was specifically targeted at the Santa Monica Pier, actually.
Bex: Yeah, no, not in the
Ellen: Pacific island nations. Hawaii
Bex: and everything just radiated in one direction. That’s why it was so big, because it didn’t go outwards. It was targeted. Everything got channeled towards Los Angeles.
Alice: It was actually just coming to Buck specifically. And we’re like, this guy’s luck is not bad enough. You know, it’d be really funny.
Bex: Let’s hit him with a giant wave.
Alice: Either that or, hmm, you know what would make him prettier? If he was soaking wet.
Bex: And covered in blood.
Alice: So true of that wave. So true.
Ellen: It’s one of us.
Alice: With a white shirt. Like, with a [00:55:00] white t shirt on as well.
Bex: Yes, kudos to the costume designer for putting Oliver in a white t shirt for two episodes when he’s soaking wet.
Alice: Ten out of ten. Um, we will buy you a muffin basket. Thank you. Costume designer.
Bex: Right, back to 9-1-1
Ellen: In other like non thirsty news. Um, we don’t get to see,
Alice: non thirsty? I don’t understand,
Ellen: we don’t get to see the, uh, the rest of the news report that says about the waves that have hit around the other parts of the Pacific, because we have to, cause Maddie, Maddie walks away.
She doesn’t, she doesn’t watch the rest of the news. She’s seen enough. Um.
Bex: Damn it, Maddie, go back!
Ellen: She, she walks past Linda, who, this is where she’s on the, on the phone, been on the phone for 20 minutes, um, because she doesn’t want to hang up until help arrives.
Bex: Because protocol dictates that they don’t hang up, but as Sue tells us later, they’re, the newfangled, those newfangled phones, um, can keep working for up to 30 minutes after being [00:56:00] submerged.
So, Linda’s on the phone expecting that her caller will be okay, and it’s literally just dead air. And Sue is the one that has to hang up the phone on her.
Alice: Yeah, and Maddie’s surprised. Maddie’s like, “I never thought I’d see you disconnect a call.”
Bex: Yeah, sometimes you have to. This isn’t a glorious situation.
Ellen: Yeah, they’ve got a lot of other people they’ve got to try and save, so. So, yeah, that’s exactly like
Bex: Yeah, that’s 20 minutes that Linda could have been helping somebody else. Yeah. Lots of other people’s actually.
Alice: So Sue pulls Maddie aside and basically says, you used to run an emergency room, that’s what I want you doing.
So Maddie’s going to be on the floor with Sue doing triage. Not for the calls, but for the people. Be the bad guy if she has to, and identify where they can help. So that’s Maddie’s job for the day.
Bex: Be the bad guy. That’s boring. Let’s get back to rescues.
Alice: [00:57:00] Yeah.
Bex: So the 118 are in a little rubber ducky zooming through the streets, and they come across the Charmed Life, and Adele is screaming for help because her fiancé and her son are inside the boat, which has been washed very, very far into the streets.
And they embark? If you get off a boat, you disembark. Do you embark a boat when you get on a boat?
Ellen: Well, you, uh, yes. You board, I guess.
Bex: Board. There you go. That’s a better word. I was starting to feel very whelmed. Um, the situation all over again.
Ellen: A bit like that, yeah. English. What?
Bex: The 118 board, the charmed life to discover that the fiancé and the son are, um, in the cabin, uh, they are indeed inside, and they [00:58:00] have been shish kabobbed by a radio antenna.
Ellen: I, I honestly don’t know how this, like, I
Bex: Don’t think about it.
Ellen: I’m, I’m trying, like, it’s just, yeah, anyway.
Bex: Don’t think about it.
Ellen: It’s pretty gross.
Bex: The logistics of how it happened is, is just, it doesn’t work. So we’re just gonna
Ellen: It, it’s managed to pierce both of them right through, uh, Yeah, but missing vital organs apparently, um, it’s through the, the son’s shoulder.
Bex: And he’s lying on top of his step, his, not even stepfather, cause they didn’t even finish the ceremony, um, soon to be stepfather, and then out the bottom of the boat.
Ellen: So they have to try and work out how to get them off it. If they pull them off, um, they’ll bleed out basically. So.
Bex: And we’ve, if we’ve learned anything from this show, we’ve learned that if you get impaled with something, you do not pull it out
Ellen: Leave it in. Let the ER deal with it.
Bex: Yes, but in [00:59:00] this instance they can’t really take the entire boat to the ER, so they’ve got to work something out.
Ellen: So, they’re like, decide they need to cut the, the antenna. Um, I’m sorry, I’m just reading through the scene going, blah, blah, love of my life, blah, blah.
Bex: Yeah, blah, blah, blah.
Ellen: Blah-di blah.
Bex: Um, yeah, I was completely, Adele has come down into the cabin and she’s kind of refusing to leave her fiancé and her son and the 118 are trying to get her out.
I was distracted by the fact that Edmundo Diaz, who is supposed to be a paramedic, is holding surgical tape in his mouth.
Ellen: Of course he is.
Bex: I’m like, where are you going to put that, Eddie, because you’re not going to put it on a person. Not when it’s been in your mouth like that.
Ellen: They’re putting it on the, uh, he’s putting it around the thing that is sticking through them. So it is like exactly the location that you do not want mouth germs.
But [01:00:00] anyway, he tapes it up so that it won’t move. And then they just get a big old circular saw of some kind and cut between them? Like, I, I don’t understand where they’re cutting here because they’ve obviously not cut the dad free.
Bex: They cut above Jason, which is the kid, and then they cut between Jason and Chuck so that they can take Jason out without actually having to remove the antenna from him.
So they just like,
Ellen: I’m thinking too hard about this again, but I imagine that, like
Bex: And I’m happy that it’s not me for once.
Ellen: Do you know how, like, if you’ve got a metal thing, like, right through you, like, even if you are sawing through a bit of metal with a, like, the vibrations of this thing, like, it’s just gonna be excruciating.
Alice: And hot. So hot as well.
Ellen: And extremely, like, dangerous. Ugh.
Bex: I’m pretty [01:01:00] sure that they say to somebody, this is gonna hurt, and I’m like, yeah, no shit.
Ellen: Oh my god.
Alice: No shit. Um, I actually watched the first episode of season three all the way to the third episode last night with both my parents.
Ellen: Yeah, oh yeah.
Alice: And Mum, Mum’s been watching on and off as I’ve mentioned, um, she has a lot of thoughts about this episode, which we’ll go into. But Dad, it was his first experience with 9-1-1 and he doesn’t normally watch shows like this. Like when I watch TV with Dad, it’s like Grand Designs and like, um, Rock Quiz and that sort of thing.
Spicks and Specs. He doesn’t really watch stuff like this. And so the guys like grab a power saw. Uh, like a circular saw and he’s just like, “where did they get that?” And I was like, “it’s magic.” Like, he’s like, “They were on a…” and I’m like, “You just don’t question it, Dad.” And Mum’s like, “they needed it.” And he’s just like, “But where was it?”
And we’re like, just don’t ask questions.
Ellen: Eddie just pulls it out of his pocket.
Bex: No, they had backpacks. I’m pretty sure they had backpacks and [01:02:00] it’s not like the massive Makita saw that they normally use. It’s a little like handheld one. So
Alice: yeah, exactly.
Bex: Yeah, but yeah, we we need
Alice: But they were on a boat, like, it’s not like they were in the truck, like, they were on a boat and they’re just like, Yeah, cool, we have a circular saw now, it’s fine.
Bex: We need to teach Russ just to go with it.
Alice: That’s it. He’ll learn, it’s fine.
Bex: But yeah, so they get Jason out, but then, um, I think the plan was that they were going to cut Jason free and then just, like, pull Chuck off. Which just, like, sounds really bad.
Alice: Yeah, I don’t know what they were thinking here in the
Bex: But apparently they can’t do that because he’s got a ruptured spleen.
So he needs, they need to keep the
Ellen: Oh, they’re automatically diagnosing people again.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: Amazing.
Bex: Well, yeah, so his abdomen is distended and warm, so he’s obviously got internal injuries. Hen magically believes that it’s his spleen. So, Uh, Bobby [01:03:00] decides that he’s not had enough fun, um, in this episode and he is going to go underneath the boat and cut the antenna from there.
And then I’m guessing they can then pull the entire antenna out and transport Chuck with it still in situ.
Ellen: If it’s through the hull of the boat, it’s Ah, yeah, I don’t, yeah. No, let’s not go there. Anyway, we
Alice: get a really cute Chim and Bobby moment where Chim says, “Always did love Jacques Cousteau as a kid,” and Bobby goes “You and me both,” and then puts his mask on and it’s just like, aww, the little Chobby, Um, is it Chobby?
The ship name? ?
Bex: Oh, no.
Alice: Pretty sure it’s Chobby.
Bex: No.
Alice: The, Chobby fans everywhere applauded. .
Bex: I mean,
Ellen: I don’t understand that reference.
Bex: I, I should not.
Alice: It’s Chim/ Bobby.
Bex: I should not be surprised that people are shipping them, because people will ship anybody, but no. [01:04:00] Apologies to the, I mean, your, your kink is not my kink and ship and let ship and all that, but um, no, sorry.
Alice: We, we love you, Chim and Bobby, um, fans. But yeah, there’s also a, um, a whole thing about Kenny and Peter as well.
I think it’s definitely like a besties thing, but like, it’s super cute.
Ellen: It is cute.
Alice: Yeah, there you go, Chobby.
Bex: That’s the worst ship name.
Alice: It’s, yeah, it’s normally just Chim Bobby, but people have mentioned Chobby. It’s like, that’s a terrible idea.
Anyway, super cute moment.
Ellen: So, yeah, but to ruin the super cute moment, um, he’s going under the boat and then they, like, Chim kind of looks up and realizes there’s another wave coming.
Bex: Yep, and so the Charmed Life is taking on water. So, yeah.
Alice: So yeah, Bobby’s underneath it, Hen and Eddie are trying to hold Chuck’s head up, um, [01:05:00] but we go back to Athena and the car crash.
Ellen: That’s a great name for a band.
Bex: Athena and the car crash. It is, actually.
Ellen: This, this dude is like, trying, like, says to her, aren’t you a police officer? Like, can’t you take a statement for this crash?
Bex: Yes, apparently Chad is um, very upset with the damage to his car and he wants to get a police report on file against the woman who he claims rear ended him so that he can claim for the insurance.
Athena is just like, I have bigger fish to fry right now.
Alice: She’s like, do I look like I’m on duty?
Ellen: She, she says there’s some real trouble down by the beach. She’s They’ve all got to look at each other, uh, look after each other. Um, there’s a, a lady who is, is she calling out for help or is somebody else calling out to [01:06:00] come over and help her?
Bex: No, I think Athena’s just checking on people and she’s might’ve just noticed that the car was crashed.
Ellen: Okay. Well, anyway, there’s this lady who’s trapped. Yeah.
Bex: Some instinct has led her to this, um, this minivan where a woman is trapped and, um, and not in a pretty bad way. Not only is she trapped, but her throat has been slit.
Ellen: Yeah, she’s got blood, like, gushing out of her neck. It’s like, oh.
Alice: Yeah, she’s got this massive, like, glass shard to her neck.
Ellen: Oh, yeah. And she’s trying to kind of hold something up there to keep the blood from coming out, but she’s getting a bit weak and she’s not going to be able to hold it. So, Athena just ropes May in.
Alice: Yeah, hey teenage daughter!
Ellen: May’s just like, I don’t want to do that.
Bex: Yeah, May takes one look at it and starts shaking her head and like, no, no, no, I’m not doing that.
Ellen: Yeah. And Athena has to like, [01:07:00] you know, give her a pep talk like, “now is not the time for you to be frightened.”
Bex: Oh, it’s not even a pep talk, she like scolds her.
Ellen: Yeah. It’s like, she almost slaps her into it. She’s like, “Come on, put your hand here and hold this.” It’s like, Oh my God.
Bex: It’s supposed to be that she only has to do it until Athena can come back with the first aid kit.
Yeah. I don’t know what she’s going to do with the first aid kit,
Ellen: but.
Bex: Well, I’m assuming she’s going to get bandages and actually like bandage up the neck to put constant pressure on. So I love that, um, May is kind of half heartedly putting pressure on this and just scanning out the window for her mother.
Like, when is she back? Is she back yet? Can I do this? Can I stop now, please? It’s like the
Alice: kid at the supermarket when you’re like watching the stuff like getting scanned and the conveyor belts going closer. And then I was like, Oh, I forgot the butter. I’ll be right back. I’ll be there. And she’s like, um, this is way too much responsibility for a 17 year old child.
Like, I am just a [01:08:00] girl.
Bex: And it’s so sad because Vicky is trying to make small talk while she’s actively bleeding out.
Alice: Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh, did I, did I hear a tsunami? Am I dreaming? No, there wasn’t? Okay, yeah, cool. Um, she apologizes a lot, I’m pretty sure, too. Like, oh, sorry you got roped into this.
Ellen: She keeps saying it’s fine. This is, it’s fine. It’s fine.
Bex: It’s fine. It’s clearly not fine. So Athena races back to her car, uses the emergency hammer to smash out the rear window because she can’t open the boot to get the first aid kit, which I’m pretty sure that Bobby has put in her car as well. And we get a shot of the, uh, sewer drain?
Whatever we’re gonna call it. Yeah, it’s like the stormwater drain. Stormwater drain, there we go. Where it says helpfully that water normally drains from the street to the ocean, but this time it’s going the other way, and the water from the ocean is coming out onto the street, and it’s [01:09:00] slowly spreading under the cars, across the street, to where the downed power line is.
Alice: Yeah, which is still live because, you know, the emergency services have been a bit busy.
Bex: Chad, He hasn’t noticed the water. He’s still focused on getting this woman’s details in down an unofficial police report so that he can get his insurance claim in. Um, notices that Athena has sort of returned back into his eyesight and marches across the street to make her file a police report.
Um, but he gets like one step into the street, his foot goes into the water, and he’s like, And he’s toast.
Alice: And we get possibly the most low budget scene in this entire three episode arc, um, because it just, it looks so fake. Like my dad, who is an electrician as well, um, burst out laughing in this because like, the camera like goes [01:10:00] weird.
He like shakes a bit, foam comes out of his mouth, and then he’s dead, and I was just
Bex: Almost immediately, he starts foaming at the mouth.
Alice: Yeah! Like, it, it’s so bad. Like it looks like the, the pantyhose dummy, basically.
Ellen: It’s the pantyhose dummy of electrocutions.
Bex: But the con, but the, uh, the side effect of this is it’d be like, Chad is dead.
Like, but, um, Athena realizes that the water is now, um, dangerous and she therefore cannot go back to help May and May cannot get out of that car. She has to stay with Vicky until they can get the power turned off. Because she’s being grounded by the tyres. So she’s safe, as long as she stays in the car.
Ellen: Poor May. She’s um, goes back to Vicky and puts the, you know, thing back on her neck and tells her she’s going to be fine and Vicky’s like, I’m really sorry.
Bex: It is interesting, well, [01:11:00] it’s interesting to note that once May realises that like, help is not coming, she steps up. And she’s not like half heartedly doing this anymore.
She’s like, okay, I am the only person who can help me, um, this woman, so I’m going to like pay attention and properly try to help her.
Ellen: Right. Back to the Chaos Twins, um, sorry, there’s more than two of them, uh, so the water is coming in.
Bex: Well, there’s two of them in the boat, so yeah, they can be the, the Chaos Twins who are trying to do CPR underwater.
Ellen: I, I, I didn’t understand. How this, like this whole scene, I was just like, why do they need to put him underwater? Like, but it’s because the, he’s not breathing anyway.
Bex: Yeah. So Chuck loses a pulse, so they need to start performing CPR, but they have to put him flat to be able to do the compressions. Eddie is like, “Well, we can’t put him flat because then he’s going to be underwater.”
And, [01:12:00] um, Hen is like, “well, he’s not breathing anyway, so we’re not going to worry about the breathing side of things, we just need to keep his heart pumping.”
Ellen: Yeah, and so they put a scuba mask on him. I’m not sure which part of him, like, is it through his abdomen or something, this, the, the metal spike is, so pushing on his chest isn’t gonna make that worse?
I don’t know.
Bex: I mean, it probably is, but it’s one of those
Ellen: Saving his life, or You know, I don’t know. Anyway, Bobby’s still underwater.
Alice: Just don’t think about it too hard.
Ellen: I’m trying not to.
Bex: The thing that I couldn’t understand was why they’re doing the CPR and Eddie keeps going under the water to check on him.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Why are you going under the water? Because you can’t listen for his breathing because he’s in a scuba mask and he wasn’t breathing anyway.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Yeah, no idea what’s going on with the scene. I’m just going to let it go. Um, yeah, so, but the important part is that [01:13:00] Bobby is under the water with a cool little, uh, cutting torch cutting the bottom of the antenna so that they can, you know, do whatever it is they’re going to do to Chuck.
I don’t know. It works. I mean, they, they get a pulse back. Um, Bobby gets the antenna free. They manage to get Chuck up out of the water. It’s all good.
Ellen: And he’s suddenly conscious.
Alice: It’s, it’s, it’s chaotic, but they, they get it there.
Ellen: He wakes up and they go, Oh, you’re back. Anyway, they get him off, off the boat.
He’s going to be okay for now. Um, they get, they get him to the hospital. So they just, they get a message from dispatch saying like, we need backup at the pier. So, they get back in their little rubber ducky thing.
Bex: Yeah, so Hen and Chim are going to go with Chuck and Jason to the hospital. They don’t get to play down at the pier.
Um, and Bobby and Eddie are going to go down [01:14:00] and help out. Uh, but first we’re going to go back to the car accident. Where, uh, somebody has finally got through to 9-1-1. Um, and this is where I was really wishing that they had Josh. Because Athena grabs the phone and says that she needs, um, She identifies herself, she gives her location, and she says, “We need a power crew down here.”
And dispatch is going
Alice: I love that she doesn’t give her badge number. Like normal No. We used to get a Um, her ID number, and this time she’s like, “it’s Athena Grant, LAPD.” And they’re just like, “Oh, hey, Athena, what’s going on?”
Bex: If it had been Josh, he would have known, but this guy doesn’t know. Um, but when Athena says I need a power crew, he’s like, but you haven’t lost power down there.
Ellen: She’s like, “That’s the problem. I’ve got folks dying in the street.”
Bex: Apparently the nearest crew is over an hour away. And Athena’s like, “Well, that’s not gonna work.” So [01:15:00] she has, um, she has another idea. She gives the phone back to, um, whoever’s phone, whoever the person was that she stole, pulls out her own phone, um, and calls Jacobs, who I’m guessing is another cop and basically commandeers a police car.
Yeah. She says that, um, she needs Jacobs to find her a black and white. the closest that they can find to the current location of a power crew.
Alice: Uh, meanwhile in the car, Vicky’s not doing great. Um, she tells May, it’s okay. And May’s like, “no, no, no. Like, don’t lie down. You’ve got to sit up. There was less blood when you were sitting up.”
And she’s like, “it’s okay.” And she’s like, “Stop saying that. It’s not, help’s coming. My mom’s out there. She’ll figure something out. Keep your head up.” And Vicky’s just fading fast.
Bex: And then May’s like, channels her mother and just starts scolding this woman. [01:16:00] She’s like, um, Vicky’s sort of very faintly saying, “I just need to rest.”
And May’s like, “I don’t give a damn. I am 17 years old. You are not going to traumatize me by dying in my arms. Okay. Nobody in this car is dying. Not today.” Which like scares Vicky back into full consciousness.
Ellen: Yep. No where she got that from.
Alice: Um, so then the, um, then the police show up with the, like, power.
Ellen: Yeah, so basically they just kidnapped one of the power crew.
Bex: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. We’re putting you under arrest and we’re bringing you over to this location.
Alice: But then, oh, it’s the dumbest thing. It’s so dumb. Like, so dumb. So again, my dad is an electrician. Apparently when they actually, like, turn off the power like this, [01:17:00] they have to be wearing, like, special suits so that they’re, like, properly grounded and everything like that.
No, no, this guy’s just in, like, a high vis vest and I can’t even remember if he’s wearing a hard hat. He literally just walks over
Bex: He’s got a hard hat on.
Alice: To a switchboard. And like, pulls a lever,
Bex: which
Alice: like the switchboard’s open
Bex: and it’s, and it’s a big like red lever. It’s quite obvious which one it is, which was my question was, couldn’t somebody else have done that?
Alice: Literally, like they couldn’t have been like, Oh, Athena, like we can’t get you there. Can you just like pull the
Bex: We’ve got DWP on the other line, they’re going to talk you through it.
Ellen: Find the big red lever and pull it.
Bex: Yeah. But it’s like,
Alice: it’s, it’s so stupid.
Bex: But it works, so the power goes off, the water instantaneously is no longer electric spicy water.
Alice: We were trying to work out as well, so like if, obviously all the water near the power line
Bex: Like how long does the water retain a current?
Alice: Yeah, like how far does the [01:18:00] current go? I don’t know. Like how many people would have been electrocuted when the water started coming out? Because it goes all the way down through the storm drains as well.
Ellen: Yeah, I don’t, I don’t think it would be strong enough to electrocute someone if you were a few meters away.
Bex: It would dissipate the further away… I mean, it’s not something that I’m going to, like, make a big puddle out my driveway, throw a toaster in at one end and see how far away I can get before I get electrocuted, but
Ellen: Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s good. It’s finished. The power’s off now.
Bex: The power’s off. Athena races back to the, um, the minivan where she discovers that Vicky has died. And May is just cradling her, her dead body. So apparently she was going to get traumatized today.
Alice: Yep. Sucks to be Vicky.
Ellen: Sucks to be May. Vicky’s okay. She’s, she’s having some rest now.
Bex: She, she really did need that rest. And just [01:19:00] as, just as this happens, an engine truck and an ambulance show up.
Ellen: Yeah, just, just too late.
Bex: So, paramedics, um, converge on the scene. Uh, we see, as Athena is leading May away, we see them, um, get out their big circular saw, so that they can cut the door free, they can get, Vicky out onto a gurney.
Alice: Circular Saw is getting a lot of screen time this episode.
Bex: Yeah, this episode is sponsored by Makita.
Alice: I was going to say super cheap auto, but yep, that’s it.
Bex: But all of this is happening in slow motion, until one of the paramedics says, we’ve got a pulse, and then all of a sudden, time rushes and speeds up, and May sort of whips her head around as She watches the paramedics rush Vicky double time to the ambulance so they can get her to the hospital.
And she’s like, she’s like, “Wait, wait, she’s alive?” [01:20:00] And Athena’s like, “Yeah, yeah, she’s alive because you kept her alive.” And then Corinne’s face just crumples.
Ellen: Oh, yeah.
Bex: And she just starts bawling her eyes out. Because she’s been holding it together for so long. Yeah.
Alice: I love May so much, yeah.
Ellen: She was so scared. She says, I’m not you, Mum. And I disagree. She did a good job of telling her.
Bex: The way you spoke to that woman, you were very, very, very much your mother’s daughter.
Ellen: I like how Athena says, “I wasn’t, I wasn’t always me either. It took me a minute to get here.” It’s like, so true. And so, May, May end up traumatized, but for good reasons, potentially.
Alice: She’s got something to write an essay now, so she’s good. Back in Dispatch.
Ellen: Mr. The Power’s Not Out In Your Area. Oh, I like that. Sorry.
Bex: Well, we never got a name, and it wasn’t Terry, and it’s not Josh, and it’s not Linda, [01:21:00] so
Ellen: Extra guy. Extra Dispatch guy.
Bex: Maddy has been roaming the floor checking on everyone and Mr. The Power is Not Out In Your Area waves her down because he, um, he has a problem. He’s trying to send patients to hospitals but the hospitals are turning away his ambulances because they don’t have any more beds. So Maddie is trying to work out where to send, um, his patients and he is obviously sitting at Maddie’s station because there’s a phone sitting next to the mouse pad which starts buzzing and he picks it up and immediately just hands it to Maddie and it’s Chim!
Alice: It’s Chimney! Um, and Chimney’s having the same issue. They’re pulling level ones out of the water and they’ve got nowhere to send them. But then the best part is that Maddie’s like, yeah, we’re sending victims to every dry hospital we can find. We have a system in place. And Chidney goes, “Well, whoever’s in charge of that system is doing a terrible job.”
And Maddie just goes, “Well, that would be me.”
Bex: And you can [01:22:00] see Chim just like screw up his face. He’s like, shit, shit, shit, shit.
Alice: Sleeping on the couch. Oh no.
Bex: And he revises his statement that whoever is, um, in charge of the system is doing a terribly good job under extremely difficult circumstances.
Alice: Love you I’ll buy you a bracelet.
Bex: But between the two of them, they figure out that it’s not that the hospitals don’t have enough staff, it’s that they don’t have enough beds, so they need more hospitals.
Alice: Yeah, they need a field hospital.
Bex: Yes, and just so happens that there is a VA hospital nearby that’s completely empty. They could start sending people
Alice: Yeah, literally completely empty, because it was decommissioned two months ago. So, There’s also no beds or anything, but they’re like, yeah, no, that’s fine. We’ll get stretchers.
Bex: Yep, we can get it set up. That’s fine. So, uh, Maddie promises that she’ll talk to Sue and she will make that [01:23:00] happen. And then they have this cute little moment where they check in with each other and Maddie like runs out into the hallway and almost kind of hides.
Because suddenly it’s not a work call anymore. It’s a personal call and she doesn’t want to see anyone. She doesn’t want anyone to see her, like, taking a personal moment.
Alice: That’s so cute.
Ellen: But yeah,
Alice: so Chim asks how she is, and she’s like, “Honestly, happy to hear your voice, and weirdly grateful that my brother has a serious blood clot condition and is nowhere near this nightmare.”
Which is awkward, because
Ellen: he’s right in the middle of the nightmare.
Alice: We then cut back to Buck, who’s literally, yeah.
Bex: Still, still on top of that engine track. He’s got friends now, though. They’re all just
Alice: Yeah, they’ve got a bunch of survivors with them, they’re all just sort of huddled together. But Buck’s doing his best to keep Christopher distracted.
Bex: Yeah, they’re playing I Spy. Which, Chris doesn’t really understand how it works. Because
Alice: Um, Chris just likes yelling stuff out.
Bex: Yeah, because Buck is [01:24:00] like, I spy with my little eye something that moves people around. Um, and Chris spies the scooter that’s floating past them. and says “a scooter,” like, yeah!
And then it’s his turn, and he’s like, I spy a shopping cart! Buck’s like, “no, that’s not how you play the game.”
Ellen: And Chris is like, he goes, you can’t just yell stuff out, and Chris goes, but yelling stuff out is the fun part!
Bex: I love that there’s a woman sort of sitting next to them, or near them on the engine truck, and she’s She’s not really in frame, you can just kind of see her, but she’s sort of watching this interaction, and she’s, she’s so touched by what she’s seeing.
Ellen: Mm hmm.
Alice: But yeah, they have a bit of another deep and meaningful here, where Buck says that Chris amazes him, because Buck got some bad news at work the other day, and he didn’t want to get out of bed for a whole week, but Chris has had a terrible day, and here he is still smiling and laughing. You know, [01:25:00] even when the water was rushing over him, he just kept on swimming.
And Chris just goes “Like Dory.” He just keeps swimming.
Bex: I did, I did like this next part because, um, in the last episode I was, when they were doing the, the whole, um, iffy ableism thing, and I was saying that, um, the, the inspiration porn, and I was saying, you know, I’m sure that Christopher has complained at some point.
And they say it here. And he’s like, well, Buck’s like, you never complain. And Chris is like, no, I complained once. It just, it didn’t work.
Alice: It didn’t work. I think I like this interaction because Chris is just like a kid. Like, he’s just yelling stuff out, he’s quoting Dory. Like, they’re not making it about his cerebral palsy.
Bex: Mm.
Alice: Like, it’s like after the day you had, like, it’s not, Oh, like, cause you’ve got this, you know, issue.
Bex: Yes. It’s Christopher’s [01:26:00] personality, not Christopher overcoming his disability.
Alice: You literally almost drowned and you’re still sitting here laughing. Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. I wonder who he complained to that, that it didn’t work.
Was it Eddie? Or was it his grandparents?
Bex: What did he just like complain in general? Out into the universe, and the universe is just like, eh, suck it up, kid. But the deep and meaningful gets, um, cut short because the other people on the truck start making sort of like, oh no, and sad noises, and Buck looks up to realize that there are bodies floating down past the truck.
Alice: So Buck immediately is like, “Look over there! Up the opposite direction. Really high. Really, really high.”
Bex: Here, let me move your face in the direction of where I am spying and hold it there. So there is no possible way that you can turn and look over your shoulder at the dead bodies floating past you. And [01:27:00] you can see that even as he’s trying to put on a brave face, he’s not.
He’s very distressed by the fact that there are all these people that he couldn’t rescue and he couldn’t help them.
Alice: Yeah, he couldn’t save. Yeah.
Ellen: It’s going to be a hell of a clean up job. You can see that from all the debris and dead bodies everywhere and I assume there’s going to be like sewage in this water somewhere, like,
it’s, it’s a big mess.
Bex: It’s not going to be good. But at least they will have a, um, a field hospital because The um, Deputy Mayor and State Emergency Services have greenlit Maddie’s plan, so that’s going to go ahead. And she’s really excited for a second until Sue tells her to start by getting body bags there. She realizes that Yeah,
Alice: 5, 000 of them just to start.
Bex: The field hospital doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to be saving a lot of people. It’s possible that it’s just going to be a place for the bodies to go.
Ellen: So, Eddie and Bobby are [01:28:00] heading to sea. Yes! They’re going to the ferris wheel.
Alice: Pretty much, yeah.
Ellen: Which is the other end of the pier, um, which is now out to sea, basically.
The ferris wheel is barely hanging on, as the waves keep coming in.
Bex: It’s just like the top, there’s just half of it. Yeah, yeah. It’s just sticking out above the water.
Ellen: Yep.
Alice: Um, Bobby’s already sick of Eddie without Buck, because Eddie’s like, you see this cap? And Bobby’s like, yeah, it’s right there. Like it’s literally right there.
Whereas like Eddie would have been like, you see this Buck? And Buck would have been like, I sure do B1!
Ellen: There’s people hanging off the Ferris wheel, basically. Some are up the top in the little cars, and others are just clinging onto the sides of it.
Bex: There’s also, like, massive piles of debris sort of floating around the Ferris wheel that people have climbed up on top of as well. Um, Bobby No, I don’t think Bobby’s steering, but Bobby’s [01:29:00] boat kind of pulls up around to one side of the Ferris wheel, where there’s a man and two women sort of floating around.
on, um, on something, a pile of something. And here’s why I get really frustrated with, um, the episode, because Eddie asks them something and they respond and it’s all in Spanish. And all we get told through the closed captions is they’re speaking Spanish. Yeah. Yeah. And I really
Ellen: Bobby explains it afterwards.
Bex: Bobby has picked up a little bit of Spanish, apparently. He, he, he got the gist of it.
Alice: Yeah, so basically, like, someone’s been helping them and the man just points up at the Ferris wheel and goes, “La Bombera.”
Bex: Something Bombera. And Bob is like, “wait, who’s helped them?” And Eddie’s a little bit confused. He’s like, “La Bombera.”
And then we see Lena, lean over the top of one of the little cars, boats, [01:30:00] pods, Whatever you call them when they’re on a ferris wheel. Um, and just yell.
Alice: Carriages?
Bex: Yeah, that’ll work. I don’t know. But she’s up on the ferris wheel and she could use a hand up there. And so Eddie turns back to Bobby and his chosen translation of La Bombera is “Fire Lady.”
Which, he’s not
Alice: I mean, pretty much, because
Bex: He’s not wrong. But it’s like when you’re talking to a two year old and you’re like, Oh, look at the nice police lady.
Alice: It’s basically the feminine form of firefighter.
Bex: Oh, no, no. I get that.
Alice: But yeah, like, I don’t know how that translates to fire lady, but sure.
Bex: It translates to fire lady if you’re explaining it like a child. Like lady firefighter. But why he chose to tell Bobby that it’s fire lady, I don’t know.
Ellen: Maybe he was just being cute for dad. I don’t know.
Bex: Ah, [01:31:00] talking to the captain, like talking to the captain and the audience, like they’re five.
Alice: No, no. Again. He thought he was talking to Buck.
Ellen: Maybe. Speaking of Buck, Buck and Chris are back, still on the truck. He’s worried about what he’s going to tell Eddie about all this now. Like he’s supposed to be looking after Chris and this is what happened.
Bex: To be fair, I don’t think anybody could have anticipated this was going to happen. It’s not like Buck did this on purpose.
Ellen: And Chris reminds him that, he says, “You saved me and you saved them.” And then Buck’s like, “No, we did that together, we make a great team.” It’s like, aw, so cute. They have a hug. Yes.
Bex: But it’s um,
Alice: Yeah, they have a high five, they have a hug.
Bex: The cuteness is um, short lived because, As with all waves, it goes in, and then it has to go back out again. So
Alice: So we go to dispatch, [01:32:00] and Maddie’s watching the TV, and the news anchor helpfully lets us know that they’re getting reports of another surge. And Maddie’s like, oh god, not another wave. And Sue’s like, no no, same wave, it’s just going the other direction, back out to sea.
Bex: Which I don’t quite understand because the SES guy said that they’d had, this was the third wave. They’ve had three waves so far. Yeah, so shouldn’t the waves be like going in and out and in and out constantly? Not just in, in, in, in, and then all the way out.
Alice: Yeah, but this is, this is like a worse surge backwards. I guess. I’m not going to think about it. I don’t know how tsunamis work.
Bex: Not like this.
Ellen: The water has to go out again at some point.
Alice: I don’t know, the tide’s going out, the moon moved, who knows? Anyway, we go back to Buck and Chris, and the water’s now rushing the opposite direction.
Bex: And fast. [01:33:00] It was pretty It had calmed down a little bit when they were playing I Spy, um, but now it’s, it’s seriously rushing and it is knocking into the firetruck and it’s sending debris into the firetruck, um, and one of the guys that Buck had rescued previously falls off the truck back into the water.
Ellen: Yeah, and then we cut briefly to the ferris wheel where a bunch of debris is heading for it, so they all hold on as best they can but The ferris wheel is like bending over, looking a bit precarious, and we go back to the firetruck in the flood and, Buck’s trying to hold on to Christopher, but he leaves Christopher and tries to grab one of the guys who fell off out of the water, but another surge, like something hits the truck.
Bex: There’s also more people that were obviously up further, further up the [01:34:00] street, further down the street, that were okay where they were when the water was calm. Now that the water has started to move, they’re being sucked out and they’re being swept down the street. And
Alice: Yeah, so they’ve got suddenly a whole bunch more survivors.
Bex: And so again, Buck has that split second of, do I stay with Chris or do I try and save these people? And once again, he makes the decision, Chris is safe up on the truck, so I’m going to save these guys.
Ellen: Turns out Chris is not safe on top of the truck.
Bex: No, because
Alice: He’s trying to grab these people and the whole truck lurches.
Bex: And unfortunately for everyone involved, Chris is not sitting with his back on the little cavity on the inside, on the roof of the truck. He is sitting on the railing where Buck had left him after they were playing I Spy and so when the truck moves nobody’s holding on to him and he just goes backwards into the water.
And you can just see the moment that Buck realises what’s happened. Because he was trying to he grabbed hold of one of the guys that was being swept past, the truck moves and he lets he [01:35:00] loses this guy’s grip. And it’s like, I’ve lost the truck’s moved, I’ve lost this guy’s grip. Holy shit, Christopher. And just spins around, and at this point only dogs can hear Buck.
In a panic, his voice has gone so high, I question whether Oliver was able to talk after this scene.
Alice: Like, Oliver is, Oliver is acting his heart out here. Yes. Yeah. Um, and there’s actually an interview with Oliver because he, so, Buck’s like on the truck screaming, he then jumps into the water and starts like flailing about looking.
And there’s an interview that Oliver does. Um, after this episode came out, where him jumping into the water, like, wasn’t scripted. Like, I think it was just like, Chris falls off Buck, like, screams, and then it, like, the camera cuts. Um, and Oliver was like, should I, like, do you think I’d, I’d jump in? Like, should I jump in?[01:36:00]
And the director was like, look, like, jumping in at this point would be suicide. But if it was my kid, I’d be doing it. And so Oliver jumped straight in.
Ellen: Oh, what a way to end the episode.
Bex: Yep, we end the episode with Buck in the water screaming for Christopher, um, and no sign of him.
Alice: Yep, absolutely no sign while the water’s like rushing around.
Ellen: Yeah, and then they pull up and it’s the streets of Santa Monica again and it’s like, This is amazing, ah! Very terrifying. I can’t imagine having to wait a whole week to see the next bit.
Bex: Yes. This is very definitely an episode that you need to watch them, like, back to back to back.
Ellen: Yep. Yep, absolutely. Any other fun trivia that we haven’t covered for this particular half of the emergency?
Alice: Let me check my notes. [01:37:00] Okay, so the water tanks they filmed in were The Titanic tanks and there were um, 1200 by 1200 feet.
Ellen: Oh. So they’re huge, like 40 meters wide?
Alice: 1200 feet are apparently 365 meters.
Ellen: Oh my God. Really?
Bex: Oh shit. That’s massive.
Ellen: Missed. I missed a zero. Wow. That’s huge.
Alice: So yeah, massive. They’re filled with ocean water because the tank meets the ocean.
Um, so the whole crew was in wetsuits.
Bex: That’s like the swimming pools on, in Sydney. Like the, the pools that are built into the side of the beach.
Alice: Yeah, but bigger.
Bex: Oh, yes. Yes.
Alice: Much, much bigger.
Ellen: Oh, wow. Um, I guess that’s how they get huge waves in it, right?
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. And they built, I think I saw in one of the articles that they [01:38:00] built the buildings to, in, in there to make it look like the streets.
Did I imagine that?
Bex: No, but that would make sense.
Alice: No, they probably would have built, yeah.
Bex: If the tank is that big, then yeah, you could build structures into it.
Alice: Yeah, like they were probably empty structures, but they’d still be structures.
Bex: Yeah. Just like plywood facades.
Ellen: Yeah, the less, the more physical stuff’s there, the less CGI you have to do, I guess.
Alice: Yeah. But, um, and yeah, so as I said, like he had a stunt double, but like, Gavin had a stunt double, but it was better when it was actually Gavin, but Oliver was like, I can’t let this child go underwater. So it was a lot harder and more stressful, which led to a better product because it was real.
Oliver said that Gavin never complained. He even hit his head on the fire truck once, and when they all cut, he was like, “Gavin, are you okay? I hit your head.” And Gavin just said, “It’s okay, Buck.”
Ellen: Aww. Aww.
Alice: And Oliver just melted. He’s [01:39:00] the sweetest, bravest kid when it comes to the stunts.
Ellen: So cute. What else do we want to say about it? I, I just, I feel like we need to just get straight into the next episode.
So.
Alice: Yeah, I think the blood clotting stuff’s all next episode, so we’ll dive into that a bit.
Bex: Yeah, I, I feel like I’ve, I want to pick your brain about this, Ellen, but I think I’m going to wait till the end of the, the end of season three, end of episode three.
Alice: End of season, yeah, we’re not talking to you, Ellen, until we’ve watched all of this.
Ellen: No,
Alice: yeah, that’s fine.
Bex: No, get to the end of the, the next episode so we can discuss sort of this whole arc as a whole. Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. Uh, do we have a summary for next week? It’s probably similar to
Bex: Surprisingly, in the next episode, a massive tsunami hits the Santa Monica Pier.
Ellen: Did we not just have that?
Bex: Let’s see.
Uh Yes, actually, that was for this week’s episode, [01:40:00] for next week’s episode, um, it’s still, it’s still not that brilliant because it’s just the 118 race to save lives after the massive tsunami hits the Santa Monica Pier, which I believe is somewhat self explanatory. We do get a little bit of Buck Fears the Worst when Christopher goes missing, which, I mean, Again, I believe that’s sort of self explanatory.
Um, and it’s pretty much the, the same trigger warnings. We have the, the tsunami. We have, women and children and people at threat of drowning. We have drowning victims. Um, we do get some new ones. Um, we have. Cops being cops, um, and just for shits and giggles, we’re going to have a field amputation.
Ellen: Awesome. Yeah.
Alice: Why not? Yeah. Also a gas leak. So there is an explosion.
Ellen: Okay. So we [01:41:00] are going to go on straight into the next episode. You can let us know about what you thought about this episode or the double arc itself, You can leave a comment on this episode’s post on thatweewooshow. com or in Spotify or on our social media, however you would like to contact us. There’s lots of ways. Um, all of that is on the website and you can also find there all the other ways that you can subscribe to the podcast in various places. So, um, thank you very much everyone for listening and we will talk to you next time for episode three, which is called “The Searchers.”
See you then.
Bex: Bye.
Alice: Bye.
Ellen (voice over 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. You can call or text numbers in your country for help. Just Google crisis support in your location to find out the number.
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