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 the second episode of 9-1-1, titled “Let Go”.
A roller coaster malfunctions at an amusement park. Athena and Hen respond to an unusual home invasion. A couple’s dispute leads to a dramatic rescue.
Content warnings for episode 1.02: rollercoaster accident, dogs threatening to attack, a man hanging from a high rise building, suicide threat via jumping, suicide attempt via medical overdose, inappropriate relationship between a therapist and their patient.
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Episode Transcript
Ellen: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to That WeeWoo Show, a podcast where we watch and discuss episodes of ABC’s show, 9-1-1. I’m Ellen.
Alice: I’m Alice.
Bex: And I’m Bex.
Ellen: Welcome back guys. How are you doing tonight?
Alice: Yeah, good. Have cried all my tears about Taylor Swift. So good to go.
Ellen: Oh yeah. Okay. New album dropped today. Okay.
We’re going to try our best not to do just complete unhinged screaming and crying this whole episode. See how we go. (laughing)
Bex: No promises.
Alice: No promises at all.
Ellen: All right. Well, thank you very much to everyone who has listened to our first two episodes. You’ve made us very happy with some kind words.
And all the people who’ve shared our social media posts as well. Thank you so much. There is now on our website, thatweewooshow.com, we now have a subscript, like a subscribe page, which will show you all the different ways that you can follow the podcast to get updates of when new episodes are posted.
And also on the website, we’ve got a transcript for [00:01:00] each on each episodes posts, so go and check it out. Lots of goodies there. So. Alice, can you remind us what happened last time?
Alice: Yeah, so previously on 9-1-1 last week we were introduced to Abby, who is a 9-1-1 dispatcher, Bobby, who’s the fire captain of the 118, Buck, the hot headed punk with a heart of gold, and Athena, who’s a badass cop.
All our heroes so far have shown they have incredible skill in their professional life, but are low key train wrecks when it comes to their personal lives.
Ellen: We also got introduced to Hen and Chimney as well, but we don’t really know too much about them yet.
Alice: [00:02:00] That’s it. There’s still a little bit of a mystery.
Ellen: In this episode, we’re going to be talking about season one, episode two, which is titled “Let Go”. This episode aired on January the 10th in 2018, long, long ago.
Bex: So the summary for this episode is: a roller coaster malfunctions at an amusement park. Athena and Hen respond to an unusual home invasion. A couple’s dispute leads to a dramatic rescue.
And before we get into a discussion of the events of this episode, let’s quickly run through the trigger warnings. This episode we are going to be discussing the events surrounding a rollercoaster accident, dogs threatening to attack, a man hanging from a high rise building, suicide via jumping and suicide attempt via medical overdose, and there is also an inappropriate relationship with a therapist and their patient.
Ellen: [00:03:00] It’s got everything in it, this episode.
Alice: There’s a lot.
Ellen: Not everything, just a lot. So first up in episode two we have an actual rollercoaster, which is like, there are people screaming very loudly as they go around. But there are two guys standing in a line who are waiting to go on the rollercoaster. One of them clearly terrified.
Alice: So terrified. But the other one does not want to be a “hashtag pussy.”
Bex: Look, I’m with Devon, who is the, the gentleman that does not want to ride on this rollercoaster. I’m a millennial. My favorite horror movie franchise is Final Destination. I am not going anywhere near a rollercoaster.
So, Devon, I’m with you, you would not catch me going on that, but the threat of social media humiliation on, like, the part of his friend works and Devon gets onto the rollercoaster and the car takes off. I will note here that we get the first needle drop of a slightly on the nose song choice. [00:04:00] The song is called “Mess Around” by Cage the Elephant.
The song itself is not really applicable, but all we can hear as the rollercoaster starts to take off is, “oh no, oh no, oh no.”
Ellen: It’s like a really cute little, “oh no!” kind of a sound.
Alice: Like the bar, the guy doesn’t even try and lock it in. Like, it’s definitely not down correctly, and it’s just a sign of what’s to come.
Bex: I think all of the music in this episode are a slight foreshadowing for what is going to happen next. And what happens next is that that safety rail that did not get locked down properly opens halfway through the rollercoaster and poor Chad is flung out of the ride.
Alice: It’s bad.
Bex: And then we get the cut to the 9-1-1 call where someone is calling in to request for assistance because some guy has just been flung out and has landed on the ground and they need an ambulance, and Abby dispatches the 118.
Ellen: [00:05:00] Yeah What I didn’t understand with this part is how the hell did the roller coaster managed to stop upside down at the top of the loop? Like…
Bex: Ah, so, I looked this up.
The modern roller coasters have computers that control them. They’re called PLCs, Programmable Logic Controllers, and they kind of run off a if/then kind of program.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: So, if they notice anything is wrong with the ride, they will immediately shut the ride down. So, as soon as the PLC noticed that the safety rail was disengaged it would have shut down the ride and all of the rides, the way that the brakes work, as soon as it stops, they lock into place.
So the, the roller coaster isn’t doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. It stopped the ride to protect the riders. Unfortunately, that’s not helping Devon because he is not secured in the car under the safety rail. He is hanging from the safety rail for dear life. Poor Devon.
Ellen: [00:06:00] How terrifying.
Bex: So the 118 rock up, they’ve brought the ladder truck and Bobby tells Buck to go up to the top of the roller coaster and get Devon into a safety harness while he moves the truck because apparently he pulled it in at the wrong angle.
So Buck agrees because he’s, as he said, the daredevil hero stuff is what he signed up for.
Ellen: Well as soon as Buck gets up there, he climbs all the way up the ladder and, up the outside of the loop. But as soon as he sort of gets up there and checks in with Devon, he just wants to know how Chad is, if Chad’s okay.
And so Buck radios down to the others on the ground where Chimney and Hen are assessing Chad on the ground. But they, they reply to say that they’ve lost him. But then Bobby tells them he doesn’t want the people on the rollercoaster to know about that, [00:07:00] so they just pretend that he has made it and they put him in an ambulance.
Alice: Yeah, put him on a gurney, act like he survived, and take him to hospital.
Ellen: Yeah, which is good. I mean, they don’t want people panicking more than they already are.
Alice: Yeah, definitely.
Bex: Exactly. And Devon is completely panicking, he’s worried about Chad, he’s noticed all the people down the ground with their phones out recording him, he wants Buck to tell them to stop, because he doesn’t want what is about to happen, or what is happening being blasted all over social media.
And Buck is more interested in just getting him to put the safety harness on.
Alice: Yeah, Buck just keeps saying, it’s, it’s three inches, come on, you can do it. Reach out and, and grab me.
Bex: And when, yeah, when Devon makes no move for the safety harness, Buck decides that he will physically pull Devon to safety himself.
So he reaches out, holds out his hand, tells him, I will not let you go. Devon looks at him and says, [00:08:00] I can’t. And let go, let’s go with the railing and falsity is death.
Ellen: We get like this really kind of unpleasant splat noise as well. It’s like, Oh, that’s not good.
Alice: It’s baaaaad.
Bex: The camera stays on Buck’s face, but we hear what is happening. And kudos to the Foley artists because that sounded horrible.
Alice: So bad.
Ellen: Indeed. So after the title card we go back to the firehouse where Buck is sitting at the dining table staring into his coffee cup and Bobby’s preparing a meal again, as he seems to do. They try to feed Buck, but, but he says he’s not hungry.
Alice: Buck says he’s never lost anyone before, asks if it gets easier. Bobby says no.
Bex: Bobby says no immediately. No hesitation. No, it does not get, it does not get easier.
Ellen: [00:09:00] Yeah. And Chimney says to, tries to sort of reassure him and said that people die, that’s part of the gig. And then he, he makes this analogy, which I thought was slightly questionable at the time where Buck’s treating every job like it’s a long-term relationship, but really they’re like one night stands and they mean everything to you in the moment, but the next morning it’s onto the next one, like, Whoa, okay.
Very healthy.
Bex: I have to say, as someone who’s watched the entire series and sort of seen Chim’s story arc, early season Chim is very interesting.
Alice: There’s a lot that I noticed in these two, like in this episode in particular, that I was like okay.
Bex: And I think that we, this is something that after the next episode especially, that we need to come back and talk about…
Alice: Yeah, definitely.
Bex: Chim and, and who he is and his character. [00:10:00] But yes, it is a very questionable analogy, and even Buck kind of side eyes him for it. But thankfully Hen distracts them from this conversation. She’s brought Athena to quote unquote, family dinner.
Ellen: Yeah,
Bex: and Bobby welcomes her to the table.
Alice: Yeah, they don’t normally allow cops at secret firehouse meetings, but he’ll make an exception
Ellen: And Buck’s not real happy to see her after what happened last episode But they sort of patch things up and they’re gonna give a second chance kind of thing nd she tells him that she knows that he’s struggling with the job and she says that at the end of the day we can take the uniform off and let go. That’s why we wear the uniform so we can take it off and let go of it, which is also not terribly healthy, but you know, you got to do what you got to do, I guess.
Right.
Bex: [00:11:00] So if you haven’t already noticed the episode of this, the title of this episode is “Let Go”. And the theme of a lot of the character storylines in this episode is about letting go, whether that’s physically, with Devon letting go of the safety rail, or emotionally with Buck having to let go of what has happened at that call and other characters also have to grapple with letting go of things during this episode.
Alice: Yeah. It’s it’s definitely a theme that, I mean, I’m only on season three so far, but it’s definitely a theme that has continued where the episode titles very… episode title-y. Like, they say it, they base the whole episode around it. It’s a whole thing.
Ellen: Yes. So, what you’re saying is that when we play our drinking game later in the, at the end of the season where, you know, we’re going to have to drink every time someone does something related to the episode title? That happens a lot. (laughing) Okay.
Bex: [00:12:00] I do want to note that when Athena was talking about the uniforms and, and how police and, and firefighters use them, because then at the end of the day they can take off the uniform and let go, she poses it as a question of why do you think we wear uniforms and Chim’s immediate response is “sex appeal”. (laughing)
Hearkening back to his relationship with Tatiana, where he’s using the uniform as a form of foreplay. But, once again, family dinner is interrupted before anybody can take a bite, bells ring, and everybody gets up from the table. Leaving the delicious food behind.
Ellen: Number two for the ruined meal count.
Alice: No. So much wasted food.
Ellen: We go directly to Abby now, getting ready for work, and she hears Buck’s name on the news as she’s getting ready, and he’s giving an interview about the Fairground disaster, [00:13:00] and so she’s kind of drawn to the TV and going, “ooh, it’s that guy.”
Bex: And we find, we find out Buck’s full name as well. He is Evan Buck, Buckley.
Alice: So, yeah, her mum, as she’s trying to get ready for work, her mum gets trapped in the bathroom. She’s locked both the doors from the inside, and so Abby’s trying to get her out because she’s late for work. And Carla shows up!
Ellen: The doorbell rings, it’s Carla Price from Home Care. And she comes in like an angel and gets Abby’s mum out of the bathroom by talking her through it. Unlocking it. And Abby is so happy that she hugs her. She says, “I’ve never had anyone help me before.”
Bex: I think there’s this scene goes back over the theme of the previous episode where Abby was talking about how emergency responders are really professional at handling other people’s emergencies, but not so good at handling their own.
[00:14:00] So I’m sure that if Abby had received a 9-1-1 call where someone had locked themselves in a bathroom, she would have been able to talk them through it very, very calmly and got them out. But because it’s her mother, because it’s her personal emergency, she absolutely fails at it. And it takes Carla coming in with treating this as a professional emergency to get Patricia out.
Alice: Yeah, Carla is amazing. We love Carla. So then we go across to Athena’s house. The kids are getting ready for school. Michael asks Athena if she wants a coffee and she specifically says no. So you can tell things are very rocky still.
Bex: I love this. Their son comes in, we learn his name is Harry, and they’re putting on the perfect parenting act. They’re laughing, they’re going along with each other’s jokes, Athena’s got a big smile on her face, Harry leaves. And Michael is continuing in the happy, happy nuclear family, asks Athena if she wants the coffee, and her face just drops to stone.
[00:15:00] She doesn’t need to put on the act anymore. Harry is not in the room.
Alice: So they ask where May is, who’s the sister, and he says that she’s sick, still in bed so they go in and ask if she’s got, like, a test or something, and she immediately sort of gets really defensive. And says, no, she’s just sick.
Ellen: They’re not quite sure if she is sick, but they let her stay home anyway. Michael stays home and Athena goes to work.
Bex: I think Michael’s trying to curry favour with her. He’s trying, because we find out that May kind of hasn’t been talking to them. So he’s doing whatever it’ll take to get back in his daughter’s good graces.
Even if that means just going along with her, chucking a sickie.
Alice: Yeah. And then when it sort of pans away, after the parents leave the room, We can see that May’s crying.
Ellen: Oh, can we? I didn’t pick up on that. Oh, that’s hard. Alright, so the next 9-1-1 call who, there, there is a man who’s being attacked by devil dogs apparently.
[00:16:00] We’ve got, we’ve jumped into a Supernatural episode and we have hellhounds attacking and Athena puts lights and sirens on as “No Scrubs” plays by TLC and
Alice: Buck wouldn’t, Buck would not know this song. Bye!
Bex: I don’t know whether, I’d be interested to, to hear you guys thoughts. So I don’t know whether the “No Scrubs” by TLC is that because Athena name dropped TLC in the previous episode, and they’ve decided that this is the kind of music that she listens to.
Or is it more important that it’s specifically No Scrubs and it’s foreshadowing this call that she’s about to arrive to?
Alice: I think a bit of both.
Ellen: Maybe.
Alice: A bit of both? I think a bit of both.
Ellen: It could, it could be both. Yeah. Well, the next thing she does is actually, she crosses over a median strip to get into a drive thru and, you know, forces people who are waiting in the queue to back out of the way.
And then when she gets to the window, she orders four burgers and, and some fries and like a, a root beer or something. [00:17:00] I was just like, what is she doing? And then also on my second watch through, when I was taking notes, I was really confused because when… I it didn’t occur to me at first because that she made the people back out of the way but then when she got to the window, she was on the driver’s side and I’m like, hang on do they do… Like, obviously they drive on the… In Australia we drive on the right side of the car you drive through a drive thru on the driver’s side, they hand you your food, right?
Bex: No, no, no, when they pull up to the drive thru window, they are on the far side because if you see like the videos of people bringing their dogs through for pup cups, the dog is sitting right next to the drive thru window.
Alice: What?
Ellen: Really? Why? That is so strange.
Bex: So it does make sense that if she’s driving the wrong way, she is directly next to the window.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah. She will be in front. Okay.
Alice: So they pull up and the passenger is closest to the window? How do they get their food?
Ellen: Yeah!
Bex: They reach.
Alice: [00:18:00] But their cars are so big!
Ellen: I, that, that blows my mind.
Bex: Look, anybody who’s listening to this in the US, please chime in, leave us a comment, tag us on Twitter, let us know how your drive throughs work.
Ellen: Yeah, because in Australia when, and in Britain or, and Japan, I guess, places where we drive on the left side when you pull up to a drive thru window, you are at the window and you take your food in, like, just straight through the window. I don’t, I don’t, that, that just makes me so confused.
Anyway yeah, I just, I never really thought about it before. I just assumed that their, their buildings were a mirror of ours and like, you know, anyway. Yeah.
Alice: Yeah!
Ellen: The more you know, huh?
Bex: I will admit that is not one thing that I researched. I researched a lot of things for this episode, but that is not one of them.
Ellen: No, I just, I don’t understand how that works. We definitely need someone in the US to, to tell us how that works.
Bex: Yeah, to help us with this. [00:19:00] I will flag that this is the first time, this is the first time that we hear Athena’s call sign. As she’s driving a call comes out of the radio asking for all units to respond to the canine attack and Athena grabs her radio and says 8L30 responding. And so I did look this up and the 8 designates that it is Athena and the L30 is that she is in the Sargent’s car and she is responding solo. But keep an eye on that because spoiler alert, her designation does change as the series goes on.
Alice: Interesting.
Ellen: Hmm. It must be hard to remember all those different call signs that they have to say, but anyway.
Bex: So anyway, so Chimney and Hen get to the scene first, and they find that the person who called 9-1-1 is standing on the kitchen island, spraying two absolutely beautiful Dobermans with the fancy spray nozzle from the sink.
[00:20:00] And they are paws up on the kitchen sink, kitchen island, barking at him. And Chim takes one look at the dogs and nopes out. And he’s quite willing to admit that he is a coward for sending Hen in to deal with that. And he is okay with that.
Alice: So snakes, not Chim’s deal. Dogs, not Chim’s deal.
Bex: Animals in general, I think.
Ellen: No, he doesn’t, he doesn’t like animals. No. But Athena arrives on the scene and she tells the guy, like, the guy says, have you got a gun? And she said, no, that’s just going to piss him off. But she throws the hamburgers that she got to distract the dogs and lure them into the pantry. And they shut the door.
And the guy on the counter is so happy that he flirts with Athena before, before they leave the house.
Alice: Yeah. He calls her a beautiful genius.
Ellen: Yeah. And when Hen asks her about it afterwards, Athena says she still has her ring on. She wouldn’t do that.
Bex: She says I think, she specifically tells Hen when the guy was asking about her that “he’s a bigger dog than them Dobermans because I’ve still got my ring on.”
Which Hen reminds her very gently that her husband likes boys and she’s not going to be married for much longer.
Alice: [00:21:00] Yeah, tells her, basically, the guy was hot, she should pursue it.
Bex: She should do whatever she needs to do to get through the next couple of months with her family.
Ellen: We don’t know Hen very well yet, but I love her already. She’s so nice. She’s just so supportive to everybody.
Alice: Yeah. So then Athena realizes that the doors were all shut when they got there, and dogs can’t get inside unless they live in the house.
Bex: At which point, the house’s owner shows up. And Athena realizes that he has been burglarized and not only that, but she let him get away.
Ellen: Yeah, she let go. Oh no! So back at Abby’s place, Carla shuts the door and says that Abby’s mum’s asleep. It’s a bit like looking after a toddler, I feel like, [00:22:00] when you’ve got someone who you’ve got to get to sleep and then you have a little break. I don’t know. It’s a, that’s a terrible analogy. I’m sorry. But, you know.
Bex: No, no, no. It was, it was very, very familiar. I, I completely empathize with Abby.
Ellen: And Abby offers Carla a glass of wine, then they sit on the couch while they watch the news.
Alice: Carla asks about Tommy, and Abby says the worst part is that her mother can’t remember that the breakup happened, so she just has to keep reliving it.
But she does say that, honestly, they broke up because after she became her mom’s carer, she just had nothing left to give to anyone else.
Bex: And no man is going to want her when her mother is snoring in the other room. But the TV is on, and the news is interviewing Buck again. They’re calling him the, the County Fair Spider Man, I believe.
And they let him know that they’ve been getting a lot of questions about him on their Twitter, mostly asking if Buck is single. And he gets adorably flustered. [00:23:00] He tells the reporter, “I’m sure they’re just turned on by the uniform, I don’t know that they’d feel the same way if they saw me out of it.” And then he heard what he just said and tries to backtrack.
Ellen: “I didn’t mean it like that!”
Alice: Have you seen a mirror? Because like (sigh)
Bex: It’s very cute, but Abby notices that he never actually answered the question.
Alice: Carla also calls him “a big hunk of man meat.”
Bex: But she also calls him a dog, but then she calls Abby a cougar. But she does call, she does call Abby on her wanting to know the answer to the question about whether Buck is single.
And she admits that she does want to call Buck to see how he is because he’s the first person who has ever asked about her. After a situation and he recognized her contribution during the home invasion and he called her a hero and so she feels a connection with him. She wants to reach out to him.
Ellen: She says she can see the pain in his face. He looks like he’s struggling [00:24:00] and so Carla tells her to call him and she’s not leaving until she finds out what happens. So, Abby goes in her bedroom, shuts the door, and calls him.
Bex: And can we just point out that not only did she, like, she tells, not only did she look up Buck’s number, but then she pre programmed it into her phone?
Ellen: Yeah, she got the number from a from a police report. Like, that’s…
Bex: But instead of just writing it on a post it or a slip of paper, she took the time to, like, put it in her phone. I wonder what she’s got him, like, listed as. Is he down as Buck? Is he down as Buckley?
Alice: Firefighter Buckley? What was it? Fairground Spider Man?
Bex: So she calls and Buck answers. He’s on the middle of a call. It looks like they’re fighting some kind of spot fire, but he still takes the time to pick up the phone and answer.
Alice: He calls her badass, which is real cute. I actually have a note here that specifically says Buck is the cutest.
Ellen: [00:25:00] Yeah, he is cute in this bit. But yeah, he, they can have a connection. He explains that he’s having a bad time with it. And Abby says that some people just don’t want to be saved. They, they take that moment as an opportunity to make the decision. And I think Buck is relieved that someone else gets it.
But they do kind of awkwardly end the call with like, “Oh, maybe we’ll, we can talk again.” And she’s like, okay, blushing. And then she’s like, Oh my God, what did I do at the end?
Bex: She says, “well, you can call, you’ve got my number now, or you can just call 911” and the faces that she’s pulling, and she’s saying that because I can’t see her and she’s just feeling so stupid. (laughing)
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: I think we’ve all been there when we’re talking to someone on the other end and we’re trying to be cute and we’re trying to flirt and we just hear the words coming out of our mouths and regret every single syllable.
Ellen: Yes.
Bex: Yeah.
Alice: [00:26:00] When you just want to, like, dissolve into the floor and not exist.
Bex: But I don’t think Buck notices. He agrees that he’d like to talk to her again and then promises that he will call her.
Alice: Again, he’s the cutest.
Ellen: Yes.
Bex: He really is.
Ellen: And then we cut to slightly more somber circumstances. We’re in a church, a beautiful church. I don’t know where this church is, but it’s got a beautiful stained glass window, very colourful.
But it’s Devon’s funeral. His sister is speaking and Buck is there. And then his, his sister comes to speak to Buck and he apologizes. And they have like a, a bit of a disagreement in the end, because. She tries to find out what really happened, and he said that Devon just gave up, and she doesn’t take that very well.
She basically tells him that he wanted to live, and you failed him, and Buck just looks absolutely devastated.
Alice: He looks so upset.
Ellen: Yeah, that’s only a little short scene, that one.
Bex: [00:27:00] Short, but important. Mm hmm.
Alice: Yeah, very impactful.
Bex: We then cut to an anonymous office building, where two lawyers are in a boardroom.
They’re doing depositions, I think, and a window washer, a male window washer, suddenly descends to the window of their office that they’re working in, and they talk back and forth about how creepy he is and ask whether he’s kind of watching them as he works. One of the women just tells the other one, just ignore him but it’s hard to ignore him when one of the cables on his window washing rig snaps and he is left hanging by his foot outside their window.
Alice: Yeah. And then we get another terrible 9-1-1 call. That just, they just say “the pervy guy fell.” She’s like, did you just say the pervy guy?
Ellen: [00:28:00] But when, when the 118 arrive Bobby directs buck to get up on the ladder to, to get up to the guy, but Buck kind of freaks out and says, oh, he’ll go to the roof instead.
And Bobby should go up the ladder. He, he can’t do it. And they save the guy. And later on Buck is just staring into his locker at the firehouse and he, Bobby comes along to kind of reassure him.
Bex: We find out that one of Buck’s previous jobs was Navy SEAL. He tried out for the Navy SEALs.
And Bobby asked why that didn’t work out. Buck tells him that for the SEALs wanted machines. They wanted people who could turn off their emotions. And he didn’t want to do that. And I think one of the things that he is struggling with, with this the aftermath of this call with Devon is that everyone keeps telling him to, to let go, to move on.
And he’s interpreting that as having to stop caring, flick that switch, become a machine. [00:29:00] And he doesn’t want to do that. He loves being a firefighter because he can do, he can be the tough guy, but he can also help people. And he doesn’t think he can help people if he doesn’t care about them.
Ellen: And Bobby says he doesn’t want him to do that. He needs, he needs him to be able to care about people so they can save them. And he asked him, Buck asked him if he remembers the first person he lost. And Bobby remembers exactly what she looked like and what happened.
Bex: Full details, like right down to the smiley faces, the smiley faces painted on the toes of her converse.
Alice: Yeah. Anyone who tells you losing someone doesn’t affect them is lying.
Ellen: Yep. But he gives… he happens to have in his pocket a card with the number of the trauma counsellor on it. And he hands that to Buck and tells him to go do some therapy. And I don’t know if that’s just because Bobby is, like, big into therapy [00:30:00] in general, as part of his coping mechanism, or if he just happened to, you know, have it in his pocket to give to Buck because he knew Buck was struggling but yeah.
Alice: I think he was definitely ready for it.
Bex: I think the therapy is a do as I say and not as I do kind of situation. He is a big proponent for his crew going to therapy and working out their issues, not so much himself.
Ellen: Oh dear. Well, Buck does go to therapy. Oh boy, does he go to therapy.
Bex: The therapy scene is interesting and it uses a technique that 9-1-1 is going to use quite a bit through the series where they have two scenes, two or more scenes, and they intersplice them. So while Buck is at therapy with his trauma counsellor, Athena and Michael are at marriage counselling and the two scenes are going to jump back and forth with almost Athena answering Buck’s questions and Buck’s counsellor asking, and vice versa.
[00:31:00] It’s very cleverly done and it’s a really good way to show how even though these characters are very different, they’re all dealing with the same thing.
Alice: So yeah, so Buck says he’s fine with feeling his feelings, he’s just not big on talking about them. And meanwhile, Athena says that she’s angry.
Bex: She’s completely okay with talking about her feelings.
Alice: Yep.
Ellen: I can, I can understand where she’s coming from. She doesn’t, she doesn’t like being made to feel like a fool, and she knew, deep down she knew that he was gay, but she wanted to make a life with him, with Michael, and she’s not ready to let that life go.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Which is very sweet.
Bex: And here is Athena’s contribution to the letting it go theme.
Ellen: Let it go. She doesn’t want to let it go. (sings) Let it go! Okay, I’m not gonna break into song.
Alice: It had to happen once this episode.
Ellen: I don’t know why it’s taken us this long! (laughs)
[00:32:00] Buck says he can’t shake the feeling that it didn’t need to go down the way that it did and the therapist… do we even know the therapist’s name? She’s just called the therapist, right? I don’t know.
Bex: Yeah, we, the subtitles bring up a name, but we and I don’t know that Buck particularly knows either.
Ellen: She asks if Buck blames Devon, and then she moves, she can see he’s struggling, and she moves over to the couch.
And they have, they make eyes at each other, and she says, “I can’t help you get inside his head, but I can help you get inside your own head.” And then he goes, he looks at her and he goes, “Can I ask you something? Did you friend me on Facebook?” She’s just like “You should delete that.”
Alice: So then we cut back to Michael and Athena.
Michael says no one’s trying to take away her family and they have a lot to hold on to. Athena says she can’t live with a loveless marriage, but like they’ve already been living with a sexless one. [00:33:00] So if Michael can live a celibate life, then she can too.
Bex: Which, I was team Athena through this but as soon as she said this, I just said, oh, no, you, you can’t do that because she’s essentially asking Michael that for the sake of the family, he has to stay in the closet.
Like he can open the door, everyone can see that he is in the closet, but he’s not allowed to come out of the closet,
Which is completely not fair on him. And I was on his side until the camera switches… we were focused on Athena’s face, Michael was in the background, then we switch to Michael and we see the look on his face.
And I’m like, oh.
Ellen: Oh crap.
Bex: And he cannot even look at Athena, but he says, I’ve met someone.
Alice: Then we cut back to Buck, who is fucking his therapist.
Bex: Now, because we go from Michael saying, I’ve met someone, transposed, and we cut straight to Buck. [00:34:00] Buck and his therapist. Do we think that Michael actually slept with someone else?
Is that the implication that we are meant to take? Or he literally just met someone and is upset that Athena is denying him the possibility of fulfilling the physical side of that relationship because I have a feeling that he fucked somebody else.
Ellen: Yeah, that’s, that’s the conclusion I jumped to,
Alice: Yeah, he’s definitely like…especially after the next episode. It’s, it’s not just a, I just met someone.
Bex: And I would like to have sex with them at some point in the future. This is, I’ve actually already fucked somebody, so I’m not celibate anymore. Sorry, Athena. At which point I just went straight back onto team Athena.
Alice: Nevermind. Sorry, Michael. Bye.
Bex: So yes, Buck has, successfully deflected the therapist away from talking about his feelings by acting on other feelings.
Ellen: He says he feels so much better, but she says…
Alice: She then blames Buck for it, says it’s unprofessional and kicks him out.
Ellen: Yeah. Super healthy. Good job, Buck. [00:35:00] Everything’s so healthy in this episode, including the way that Athena reacts, or we think that what she’s doing next is like calling someone and trying to hook up.
And she’s giving them very, like, “you can meet me at my place for an afternoon delight,” you know.
Alice: Oh, I love this. Like, it, it took me a second to like work out what she was doing. And I was like, geez, she moves fast. And I’m like, oh, oh, this is genius.
Ellen: Yep. When she says the afternoon delight thing, he said, “you need to update your euphemisms.”
And I’m like, oh. It was showing, we’re showing that pre-Buck humor again, like no one’s going to understand what “Afternoon Delight” is, unless you’re of a certain vintage.
Alice: Yeah, so it’s, it’s the dude from the dog call out. He’s getting really into it.
Bex: She asks very seductively, “do you like dogs? I’ve got one at my place.”
The penny starts to drop and he goes, “how did you get this number?” [00:36:00] And she says, “You called 9-1-1, dumbass.” He looks around, he sees her in the cruiser. She waves flirtily at him and he takes off. And that’s the moment that she has been waiting for. And that’s when, yeah, the puzzle piece clicked into place as to exactly what she was doing.
Alice: Yeah. It’s such a good scene.
Ellen: And she runs after it, well she chases him in the car first and then when he tries to climb a fence he’s, he’s way worse at climbing chain link fences than like the Winchesters are. And she just takes him down, and the officer that’s backing her up kind of says, you know, calm down, it’s going to be alright, you know, go easy kind of thing.
Alice: I just want to point out the chickens that are on the other side of the fence.
Ellen: Oh yeah, I forgot the chickens.
Alice: Why are there chickens there? Who knows? But they’re just doing their best life.
Ellen: Randomly in the middle of LA, just chickens.
Bex: It’s what she says as she drags this guy off the fence that is the point of the scene.
She yells at him as she’s cuffing him, “You think you can make me look like a fool and walk away?”
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: [00:37:00] And she can’t get mad at Michael. But she can get mad at this guy. Yeah. Because he also made her look a fool. Which is why she’s probably a little bit rougher with him than she should have been. The backup that she’s called is urging her to take it easy on this guy and takes him off her hands.
Ellen: Yeah. So there’s another 9-1-1 call straight after this.
Bex: This is a cracker of a 9-1-1 call.
Ellen: “Yo, yo, yo, get someone down here.”
Alice: He’s just counting floors.
Ellen: “This guy’s going to jump. I don’t know. He’s on like the fifth floor. No, the one, two, three…”
Bex: And Abby’s just going like, I don’t care how tall the building is. Where is the building?
Ellen: And there’s a guy who’s going to jump off a balcony because his girlfriend cheated on him. And they’re just shouting at each other. They’re kind of hilarious in a like a, you know, he’s about to jump off a building kind of a way which is not hilarious at all, but you know, they’re… Bobby and they decide they’re going to have to do The Maneuver. And…
Bex: [00:38:00] I love The Maneuver. I have to say, this is one of my favorite scenes in the entire show.
Ellen: Oh really?
Bex: It’s so good. I will come back and watch this over and over and over again.
Ellen: It is so good. It’s so smooth.
Bex: Chim immediately volunteers, he wants to do the manoeuvre, but Bobby says no, Buck is going to do this, because he’s going to use it as a teachable moment. He wants Buck to get back up on the horse.
Alice: I just got to say, like, the argument, like, obviously this is a tense scene, because there’s a guy on the edge of a balcony, but the argument that they’re, that he’s having with his girlfriend is just so well written and good. Like, he’s just like, “why did you move in if I’m so terrible?”
And she goes, “you’re not that terrible. Now, can you please get down so we can talk about the ways you can improve?” (laughs)
Bex: The comedy of this scene is hilarious. And Bobby does not help when he gets up.
Alice: Bobby does not help. So she, he says, maybe like, cause the girlfriend’s cracked it at this point. “And it’s like, you know what? Just jump. I don’t even care anymore.”
[00:39:00] And so Bobby gets there and goes, “maybe don’t tell him to jump. You should probably just apologize.” And she’s like, “I don’t want to apologize. Like, I’ve got nothing to apologize for.” And he’s like, “he just needs to hear it.” And so she does the worst apology in the history of apologies.
Bex: Which of course, Leonard, who is the, the guy on the balcony just does not believe her and she turns to Bobby like, “look, do you see what I have to deal with?” Meanwhile, while this is happening, Buck has gone up a couple of flights. And is slowly repelling down from one of the higher balconies and just hanging out of sight off the side of the building.
And you also noticed that the 118 have set up that, like, big inflatable crash pad on the street below. But they’ve set it up on the road. And if either Buck or Leonard fell, they are not going anywhere near that crash pad. Because they would all be falling straight down. [00:40:00] There is a decorative garden between the footpath and the road, which is why they can’t put the pad directly under where they would be falling.
But, yeah, they’re not hitting that pad at all. It’s purely decorative at this point.
Ellen: That’s weird. Yeah, so Bobby tries, starts telling a story. He says to the guy, “look, I’ve been there. I had a girl who cheated on me.” And, and he tells this amazing story about they were on the top of the Eiffel Tower and he was going to propose and then and then just as he’s about to finish the story and she said, “do you know what she said to me?” and Buck just swings down from above and just boots the guy into the apartment off the ledge and, and the girl turns to him and says, “Oh, what happened? How did the story end?” And Bobby’s like, “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t ever usually get that far.”
Bex: And that ladies and gentlemen is The Maneuver.
Ellen: It’s amazing.
Alice: (clapping) Beautiful.
Bex: [00:41:00] Yes. The way that Buck swings in off the balcony, it lands. It’s like one hand flicks the carabiner to release his harness and kind of thumbs at his face and just strides and all cocky like, look what I just did. Like, Oh my Lord.
Competence is sexy. And in that moment Evan Buckley is the most competent man on earth.
Alice: We weren’t supposed to be doing a thirst episode this week, but you know what?
Bex: Well, somebody tell Oliver that because… (laughs)
Alice: I just have to bring up, while we’re thirsting about Oliver, I found out yesterday that he is British.
Bex: Yes, he is.
Alice: And like, everything suddenly makes sense because I have a thing for British guys who, like, act like they have American accents and it clicked into place. And then this morning he had the audacity to post a photo of him training his dogs.
And yeah, I’m done guys.
Ellen: Oh, and that’s the end for you.
Alice: [00:42:00] I, yeah, it’s a whole thing. I’m, I’m, yeah, I’m there. Fucking Oliver. Anyway. So Buck, thanks Bobby for pushing him into, you know. Doing The Maneuver.
Bex: Mm hmm. Chim makes a comment that he’s convinced that Leonard is going to get lucky tonight. Because the threat to jump was punishment for his girlfriend cheating and she’s going to have sex with him out of guilt.
Which again, I’m going to put a pin on that with Chim’s personality. And he asks Buck to back him up, assuming that dude bro Buck 1.0 is going to completely agree with him. But Buck is distracted because Devon’s sister has just shown up at the firehouse.
Ellen: Yeah. And she apologizes to him and said that Devon was suicidal some years ago.
But he had some therapy and felt a lot better. [00:43:00] But recently he started going downhill again and she had asked his friend to take him to the county fair. And she thought he was doing all right, but apparently that wasn’t the case.
Alice: Yeah. She’s now blaming herself a little bit there.
Ellen: She blames herself. Yeah.
And Buck says that someone told him recently that some people just didn’t want to be saved and that helped him through it. I mean you just never know how people are feeling, do you? Like they can, a lot of people who are in this, in this kind of situation will act completely normally and you won’t think that anything is wrong until, you know, they take this extra step, so.
Alice: Yeah, don’t be afraid to reach out, reach out to your friends, reach out to professionals if you need it.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Because, yeah, sometimes times are tough.
Ellen: That’s right.
Bex: Abby and Carla and Patricia are out for, like, girls night.
Ellen: That’s right.
Bex: Or as girls night as you can have when you’re, like, in your 70s and you have Alzheimer’s and you’re out with your home care nurse and your daughter.
Alice: Carla says going out releases serotonin, which is the happy hormone, [00:44:00] and then immediately switches to Abby and asks tells her to ask out the fireman who looks like he got punched in the eye.
Bex: I think I did mention that originally they were going to try and get a reference to Oliver’s birthmark into every single episode, so here’s the second attempt at that.
Ellen: Mm hmm. Carla calls Abby a “hot spice pumpkin latte”, which is so cute. And “there’s a man who wants to burn his tongue on you.”
Bex: Well, but you’re a hot spice pumpkin latte sitting around getting cool. And that big hunk of a man would love to burn his tongue on you. (laughs)
Alice: I love Carla so much.
Bex: Isn’t like pumpkin spice lattes and that like basic white girl.
I don’t know that that is necessarily a compliment. Or maybe it worked back in 2018, I don’t know.
Ellen: Yeah, maybe. And she, Carla pushes Abby’s phone towards her and like, raises her eyebrows, and I had the thought [00:45:00] oh, gee, she’s pushy, and then Abby says, “you’re so pushy.”
Alice: This show does do the thing a lot where you think something and then someone says it. So Abby calls Buck, who’s conveniently just doing pull ups for the audience. I’m pretty sure. I’m not going to complain.
Bex: He’s killing time before the next call because I’m not allowed to leave the firehouse.
So they’ve got a gym set up. So he’s working.
Alice: Oh, I get it. But, but I’m not complaining.
So yeah, Buck asks how old Abby is because she keeps calling and nobody calls anymore.
Bex: “We text or we snap or we Marco Polo, or if it’s really serious, we FaceTime.”
Alice: But he likes it. It’s old fashioned.
Bex: Yes. So Abby offers another old fashioned idea, meeting up for old fashioned margaritas, which Buck says “where I come from, we call that a date.”
To which Abby agrees, “yes, we also call it a date.” And Buck says no.
Alice: [00:46:00] Buck actually declines.
Bex: Which, good for Buck, because he goes on to explain why, I mean, he gets it wrong to start with, but eventually he gets it right and he’s turning her down for a very good reason.
Ellen: Yeah, I love how, like, how taken aback she is by this whole thing, like, because he says something like, “If we went out on a date we’d probably end up having sex” and she’s just like, “Would we?”
Like, what?
Alice: Like, “what do you think I am, like?”
Ellen: Yeah, and he goes “oh, it’s, it’s not you, it’s me. I’m kind of like a magnet.” It’s like, oh my god. [00:45:00]
Bex: In the end, he gets it right and he tells her that he likes Abby and she makes him feel good and safe and he can tell that she is special and he doesn’t have anyone like her in his life. And he doesn’t want to risk losing her by screwing up by sleeping with her, so he just wants to talk to her on the phone like the olden days. And I think…
Alice: Look at him showing some self control.
Bex: [00:47:00] We got, I think we’re, we’re starting to see Buck like 1.1 emerging. Like it’s, it’s not completely updated, but there have been a few bugs fixed in the programming. (laughs) And, and Abby is quite touched by his honesty and accepts his no and agrees that she’ll keep talking to him on the phone.
Alice: Yeah. So she returns to the table. Carla and her mum instantly trying to work out what happened and she says, “he said no,” but she’s smiling and goes, “sometimes the right kind of no is better than the wrong kind of yes.”
Ellen: That’s an interesting sort of thing to say I guess, because I had to stop for a moment and actually think about what she meant by that, because the wrong kind of yes. Like, are you just agreeing to something because you think it’s… You know, the right thing to do, or, you know, if you don’t really want to do it.
Alice: [00:48:00] Yeah, like, the next step, or
Ellen: Yeah, but no, saying no for the right reasons is a lot better. So, Athena gets home after work and finds her son at home drawing on his own and apparently daddy called and said that they could have dinner without him.
Alice: Of course he did.
Bex: It’s his way to avoid going home.
Ellen: Of course he did. Yeah, they had a fight, so whatever. But she asked where his sister is and he says she’s in her room. So she goes to find May, but when she opens the door she sees that… she sees some pill bottles on the carpet and May is like, slumped over next to her bed, unconscious.
So she races over and like sort of goes, “May, May, are you all right?” You know, picks her up kind of thing. And so the episode ends with Athena’s 9-1-1 call to say that her daughter has overdosed and it is so tense and I could not believe that they left it on a cliffhanger like this. This is the end of the episode.
[00:49:00] I thought we were going to head straight into another, you know, the next part, because. Normally we have the resolution.
Bex: The point of it was, it’s only been two episodes, but they’ve already trained us to expect a certain pattern out of the episodes. We get the emergency, we get the 9-1-1 call, and then we get the 118 responding.
So, we’ve seen that repeated a couple of times. So, we expected that we see the emergency, May overdosing, we hear the 9-1-1 call, and we’re ready for the 118 to sweep in and rescue her. And then we cut to credits. So it’s got, if you were watching this back in 2018, you would be on tenterhooks waiting for next week to tune in to find out what happened to May.
And if, for those of us who are watching it on a streaming service, we’re immediately starting episode three to find out what happened to May.
Alice: Immediately, I started the next episode. Yeah.
Bex: It’s a great way to hook your audience in.
Ellen: Definitely. [00:50:00] And I think, I feel like they, after having watched the third episode, it feels like that’s what they do in every, at the end of every episode, they have something that will hook you in to keep you coming back for more. Right?
Alice: Yep. As I said last week, very, very bingeable.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. I get it.
Alice: And yeah, that’s the episode.
Ellen: I, I think they did a pretty good job of beating us over their head with the, the “letting go” theme in this one. Some, some people did a better job of others. There are other characters in letting things go in a lot of ways it feels like hardly anyone actually let anything go.
Bex: But except Devon.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah, he got through it, didn’t he? Yes. Oh, you mean right at the start? Yeah, okay, I get it now. (laughs)
Alice: I mean, it was 2018, it’s probably it’s probably fine now. But yeah, very, like, dark episode in places. Like, they’re not afraid to go to…
Bex: They’re not afraid to go there
Alice: Yeah! Already in episode two.
Bex: [00:51:00] They’re also willing to, to go from the dark into the light with their, the very light hearted comedic scenes to almost give you a little bit of relief before they plunge you back down to the depths again.
Ellen: Yeah, it was a bit of a rollercoaster in that way from like, literally, As well as, like, from the start, rollercoaster.
Bex: I think that was the point, because it starts with a rollercoaster, and so it puts the audience on a rollercoaster, and like, metaphorically.
Ellen: Yes. Pretty much. Yep. But I appreciate the light, the lighthearted sections as well, though. Like, you can’t just have, like, if it was going to be dark all the time, then it would be like later seasons of Supernatural where you’re just really depressed all of the time.
They also did a pretty good job of… sorry, I will, I will stop bringing up Supernatural every single episode. Maybe, maybe I will. I don’t know.
Alice: No, we won’t. Especially not next week’s.
Ellen: I know. Yeah. Well, we’ll, we’ll talk about that later.
[00:52:00] All right. Well, we would love to hear what you thought of this second episode. And you can get in touch with us in loads of ways. All of our episodes can be found along with the show notes and transcripts for each of the episodes at thatweewooshow.com. So you can leave us a comment there or you can send us an email, contact (at) thatweewooshow dot com.
And our website also has all the other ways you can follow and subscribe to the podcast. So go check that out. And definitely let us know what you thought about this episode. We’d love to hear from you.
Thank you very much for listening. And we’ll talk to you again next time when we talk about episode three, which is called “Next of Kin”.
See you then.
Alice: Bye!
Bex: Bye.
[outro music, overlaid with Ellen: 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 are not alone. You can call or text numbers in your country for help: just google crisis support and your location to find out the number. If you enjoy our podcast, you can help us out by leaving us a review on Spotify or your preferred listing app, and by sharing our social media posts. Find out more at thatweewooshow.com.]
Alice: (outtake) It’s just me screaming now. People are gonna be like, “Wow, she’s actually deranged.”
Ellen: Do you wanna get it out of your system now? Cause I can ask you some questions about it.
Alice: I don’t even care anymore. Taylor who?
(laughing)
Ellen: Oh my god! How dare you?
Alice: (next outtake) Like I have a friend in another channel that does Buddie edits, and I’m literally like, “I expect an edit of this song, and this song, and this song…” But like… cause she woke up because she’s in the UK I think? But she woke up and she’s just like “Oh, is it good?” and I’m like, “There’s literally a lyric that says ‘I scratch your head you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever.’” and she’s like, “Sorry, what?” and I’m like, “Yeah, like, I need this edit…please. Thank you.”
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