2.17: Careful What You Wish For

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 17 of the second season of 9-1-1, titled “Careful What You Wish For”.

The first responders deal with a chocolate factory calamity and a mail bomb; Maddie contemplates her future in the call center; Tragedy strikes the 118.

Content warnings for episode 2.17:

A car accident, resulting in minor character death, trauma and sadness of major characters, discussion of loss of parents, discussion of mental illness and suicide, package bomb explosion, suicide attempt via jumping.

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Our intro music is “Tensions” by Northern Points.

Episode Transcript

Maddie: [00:00:00] 9-1-1, what’s your emergency?

Ellen: Welcome back to That WeeWoo Show, a podcast where we watch and discuss episodes of the ABC show 9-1-1. I’m Ellen.

Alice: I’m Alice.

Bex: And I’m Bex.

Ellen: Thanks very much to everyone who’s been listening to our podcast so far. And we are nearly at the end of season two. Can you believe it? This is the penultimate episode.

Alice: It’s crazy. It’s going so fast.

Ellen: No, it feels like ages since we started.

Alice: Well, I mean, Chim was bleeding out for like 12 days.

Ellen: I know. It’s been a lot of weeks since we started season two, but we’re nearly there. But yeah, we, so I guess we’ll say upfront that because we are nearly at the end of this season, we need, we would love to hear about your feedback on season two, what [00:01:00] you thought of season two.

You need to get that into us by the 15th of November, which I believe is this week, the end of this week, if you’re listening to this, um, as soon as it comes out, basically, that is going to be the 14th for Americans and possibly, like, Europeans, depending on which time zone you’re in. Um, the 15th Australian time.

Um, yeah, let us know what you thought of season two, and we will read that stuff out on our wrap up episode. Um, but in the meantime, Alice, do you want to tell us what happened last week on 9-1-1?

Alice: Uh, yeah. So last week on 9-1-1, we learned more about Bobby’s beginning at the 118 after his past caught up with him regarding his history in Minnesota.

Ellen: That’s right. And we started out right where we ended. No, we ended up right where we started. That’s the way round, I mean.

Alice: So there was another, another, um, 9-1-1 flashback episode.

Ellen: Yes.

Bex: This week, we are [00:02:00] firmly in the present with episode titled, “Be Careful What You Wish For”. And which first aired on May 6th, 2019.

The summary is a little bit misleading because of the, uh, like the bold headline is Athena investigates a mail bomb, which like that’s the last five minutes?

Ellen: Yeah, that’s like the least, least important part of the

Bex: Exactly. Uh, but the full summary says that the first responders deal with a calamity at a chocolate factory and a mail bomb explosion.

Meanwhile, Eddie receives some surprising news from Shannon. Maddie contemplates a future in the call center and tragedy strikes the 118. And our triggers for this episode is we have a car accident, which results in minor character death. We have a discussion of mental illness and suicide. There is an [00:03:00] explosion by a package bomb. And suicide attempt via jumping.

Ellen: The other thing we have to, we have to mention up front before we start talking about this episode is that there is a sort of trigger warning or a warning at least for big sads. Big sads in this episode. Um, if so, if you’re not in the right headspace for dealing with a lot of people being very sad, then, um, maybe skip this or come back to it later.

Alice: Uh, yeah, this episode actually contains one of my big triggers, so I will be bowing out about halfway through.

Ellen: That’s okay.

Alice: Because mental health’s important.

Ellen: Yeah, we need everyone to stay, you know, look after themselves, so no worries if you need to bow out.

Alice: But the first half, uh, we get lotto fever.

Ellen: Yeah. I don’t know if this is how things really happen when you have a big jackpot like this, but apparently there is an all time high jackpot in the [00:04:00] the Golden State Lottery and like, people are lining up at the newsagent for ages to get their ticket.

Bex: What was it? It was 18 million. I think I saw on the screen.

Ellen: Something like that. It was a lot.

Bex: It was a lot of money. And

Ellen: there are a lot of people in this queue and they joke, like they’re joking about it as they’re buying their tickets.

They’re like, no, no one else needs to buy one because this one’s going to be the winner.

Alice: Yeah, do we get this woman’s name?

Ellen: Uh, no, I don’t think so.

Bex: There are names in the transcript, but there are no names actually said in the episode.

Alice: Oh, apparently she’s credited as Paula.

Bex: Yeah.

Alice: Okay. Um, so yeah, Paula seems to be a regular at the, it’s like a corner store, I think?

Bex: I’m not entirely sure what it is.

Ellen: A place where you buy lottery tickets.

Bex: Yeah.

Alice: Drugstore, I guess? I don’t know.

Bex: She’s on first name basis with the guy [00:05:00] behind the counter.

Alice: She is. She says, “Make it a winner this time, Ray.” She heads down the street to her car, um, she’s like, clutching the ticket like it’s her last lifeline.

And before she gets in her car, she closes her eyes and goes, “Please God, just this one wish, just this one.” And then as she opens her eyes. hundred-dollar bills are literally fluttering down around her.

Bex: Her wish came true.

Ellen: I was sort of watching this going, okay, we’re getting like the episode theme, like right out of the gate here.

Like she’s wishing for something and in this case it’s coming true. But like, it seems like every person who wishes for something in this episode thinks that they’re getting what they want, but in fact they’re not. Which is a weird theme to decide to use, but

Bex: I, I, we’re going to have to discuss at the end of the episode, [00:06:00] whether there is actually a theme to this episode, because I sincerely doubt that they carry this theme all the way through.

It’s, they set it up, it’s like, it’s there at the beginning and then I don’t know where it is for the rest of the episode, but to start off with, we’ve got this woman, you wishing for money, but then they be careful what you wish for comes in because the scene like devolves into chaos because there are people running out in the street to catch the money and almost getting hit by cars.

People are starting to fight over the money. And our, our, our friend Paula decides that she’s going to take the bundles of money that she’s caught and get out of that situation. Except then a man lands on her car.

Ellen: So not only is it raining money, but it’s raining men. Just one, just one guy,

Bex: just one man.

Alice: Uh, we’ve also got the, the music, um, producers once again, having a great time because ” Money, Money, Money” is playing this whole [00:07:00] scene. Um, which is like, it, it could have been worse. It could have been “It’s Raining Men”.

Ellen: Yeah. But we, yeah, we didn’t know that there was going to be a man falling until the end of that scene.

So she calls 9-1-1 and then whoever the call, no, is it, is it her that calls 9-1-1? Yes.

Bex: Paula calls. And she Yes, because they say that it land, the man landed on her car.

Ellen: And then while she’s on the phone to 9-1-1, uh, she discovers that he’s actually still alive. So somehow he survived. Jumping out of the building and falling on a car.

So of course the 118 are responding as they do. Um,

Bex: and of course, Athena is the LAPD officer.

Ellen: She’s already there. I don’t know how she always gets there before they do. Maybe they’re just slow. Or is she just like, jumps in the car, whereas they have to do stuff. Yeah.

Bex: I have a, maybe it’s because the 118 are always in the station house.

[00:08:00] So they have to, like, get in their trucks and then head out, whereas she’s in the sergeant’s

Ellen: They have to, like, finish chewing on their meal that they’re all sitting around the table eating.

So apparently this guy, um, had some kind of existential crisis and then threw all his money off the roof and then jumped after it. And fell 20 stories and managed to survive. And Bobby is not here because he is still stood down. So

Alice: He’s still suspended.

Bex: So we have Interim Captain Han as the most senior, um, firefighter of the 118th. Yeah,

Ellen: he walks in looking all smug.

Alice: He looks so smug.

Ellen: Maybe not smug, but he looks like he’s ready.

Bex: And we also have a new member of the 118. We have John. John has been kicked up from the B shift and, uh, [00:09:00] thrown into the mix and actually gets a name and his face on the screen.

He actually

Alice: gets a first name! I know!

Bex: He doesn’t get to say anything. No. Um, but we have a John in the 118 now.

Alice: Oh, it’s, it’s great because like they arrive, Athena says, “I don’t know like how you want to handle this,” and Hen says “That’s up to the cap.” Buck’s very quick to be like, “Interim cap.” But then Chim’s like, “Yep, yep, you keep telling yourself that,” and then immediately just goes to do his job.

And the rest of the team are just standing there staring at him like, “uh, what, what do you want us to do?” So he’s not quite, um, not quite captain, like, in a captain head space yet, I guess.

Ellen: Yeah, he still needs to look after people.

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: So Hen’s, like, gonna give this guy something for the pain because, like, he’s, he’s half in this car.

He’s, like, stuck through the windscreen. Yeah. And Eddie’s looking at him and he says that he’s got compound fracture in both legs and he hasn’t lost bowel [00:10:00] control. And Barry’s like, “Oh, at least I’ve got that going for me.” That means his spine’s okay. But then Eddie asked Paula, “How did he land?” And I’m like, well, can’t you see that, Eddie?

Like his feet are through, like his feet are inside the car and the rest of him is outside.

Alice: But Eddie’s not a detective. Okay.

Ellen: I don’t know. It’s just, it was a weird question. I’m like, well, I don’t understand. Anyway, Barry’s a bit upset about not getting it right, um, but he likes the morphine. The morphine’s nice.

Alice: Um, but yeah, apparently his wife left him, his kids hate him, um, and his only friend is suing him. And he explains the money ruined his life a year ago, he thought that it would have solved all his problems, and it just multiplied them. And at this point they’ve got him like on the backboard and on the stretcher and they’re taking him to the ambulance and Paula, for some reason, has followed him, [00:11:00] um, and like asks what happened last year and he’s like, yeah, I won the lottery.

Ellen: And Chimutters the fateful words, careful what you wish for. I’m like, Oh God, we haven’t even had the title card yet and we’ve already got the episode title. ,

Bex: Yeah. It, it, it felt like they were setting up one of those episodes where every single storyline was going to be on the theme.

Ellen: It felt like that. Yeah.

Bex: And it just, it didn’t eventuate. No.

Alice: It’s a real red herring episode. This one, like, they may as well have just call it red hair, red herring .

Ellen: Careful what you Red Herring. No, I mean, Chim got what he wished for and it turned out to not really be what he wanted.

Bex: But did he though? Did he really, did he wish to be captain?

Alice: Yeah, I don’t think he wanted to be captain, like.

Ellen: I don’t know, he said he took it because he thought it’d be fun. So maybe it wasn’t something he was actually wishing for.

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: And I don’t think anyone else in the episode was wishing for any of the [00:12:00] things that happened to them.

Bex: Oh, God no.

Ellen: I don’t know.

Alice: Um, but anyway, Paula tears up her lottery ticket.

Ellen: She’s

Alice: like, no, don’t want this after all.

Bex: Apparently it’s not worth it.

Ellen: It’s never worth it, spoiler. Because it’s just chucking your money in the bin. Anyway.

Bex: Handing it over to the government who do absolutely nothing with it. I really like, as a segue, I really like what they do in the UK, which is lottery money goes to Sporting, uh, it goes to building sporting benefits.

Ellen: Yeah, they donate, they have grant, a grant program kind of thing where you can apply for it.

Bex: Yeah, it comes out of the lottery money. Yeah. So you can get a, like a, a new, um, a new basketball hall for your junior basketball team. Yeah.

Alice: Interesting.

Bex: Yeah, I think that’s a really good way to do it rather than just fattening the pockets of a corporation.

Um, [00:13:00] yeah. We get the title card, and then we get possibly the most twisted segue that this show has come up with, because we started with a man who won the lottery and his life went to shit. And then we get the Diaz family on the beach, and Eddie wistfully says, “I feel like I have won the lottery.”

Ellen: Oh God, that’s the worst bit of foreshadowing I’ve ever seen.

Bex: Edmundo, did you not see what happened to the last man who won the lottery?

Alice: Look, you were just at that call.

Bex: Why are they choosing to use that as their segue, as their transition between scenes? I don’t know. And yet, it’s, it’s terrible foreshadowing.

Ellen: I didn’t, well, obviously I didn’t pick up on that at the time because I didn’t know what was coming, but man.

Alice: This episode is honestly the worst, like, the second watch through.

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: I thought, I was like, yeah, I know what happens [00:14:00] this, nah, worse. No. So much worse.

Ellen: Yeah, I imagine. Yeah.

Alice: Um, anyway, so yes, Shannon and Eddie, uh, up the beach a bit, um, lounging around watching Chris who’s making a sandcastle, um. Like a little bit closer to the water.

Bex: They’re all flirty and happy.

Alice: Yeah, like Eddie says that the kid was, um, he swears the kid was born happy. Shannon says she has no idea where he gets it. And Eddie says “From me.” Shannon calls him “Mr. Broody.” Which is interesting because we have seen Eddie, have we seen Eddie quite playful at this? We haven’t really seen Eddie much this season, hang on.

I don’t know.

Ellen: This is his first season, we haven’t seen, like, we haven’t seen him being really broody either, like, he’s just him at the moment, there’s no, I don’t know, he’s not

Bex: We haven’t seen him full pouty yet. Full pouty comes.

Alice: Yeah, that’s it. So, like, it’s, it’s an interesting comment. Eddie also says that he hopes [00:15:00] that Chris got Shannon’s brains, because he can’t get by on just Eddie’s good looks.

Ellen: He hasn’t inherited the one brain cell yet.

Alice: Like, at least, at least that he’s, um, self aware and knows that all he is, is good looks.

Ellen: It’s kind of mean. Look, we say these horrible things about him, about him and Buck, but honestly, we love them. Okay. It’s just sometimes they do things and you’re just like, guys, seriously.

Anyway. He, like, he says that he loves having you around to Shannon and, Shannon’s like, does he? And Eddie’s like, “Yes, we both do,” and they have a little moment. But then Shannon says, ” What are we doing, Eddie? Um, I need to know what you want.”

Alice: Oh, this is, it’s so, oh,

Bex: this is so frustrating.

Alice: It’s so cringey.

Ellen: It is a cringy conversation because it’s like, look, just, Eddie’s really noncommittal at this point as well. He’s just like, “I don’t know, I just want to do [00:16:00] this, like, can’t we just do this?”

Alice: So his exact words, uh, he wants to have a nice day on the beach with his son and his mother. Like his son’s mother. No, no, not his mother.

Bex: His son’s mother. Yeah. Yeah, Shannon’s not even his wife at this stage. She has no connection to him.

Alice: Not my best friend, not my wife, like, just my kid’s mum.

Bex: The only connection that she has to Eddie is through Christopher. To give Shannon credit, she’s just like, “oh, okay, that’s all I am to you, Christopher’s mum, great.”

And she seems perfectly willing to just take that and run with it.

Alice: Yeah, she’s like, if that’s what it is, it’s fine, just tell me.

Bex: Yeah, I just need to know. Yeah. And Eddie sort of is flustered and he goes like, “I, I, I don’t know, you know, this last few months have been really good. I think I’m just waiting for a sign,” and the following words just fall out of [00:17:00] Shannon’s mouth.

It’s, “I think I might be pregnant.” And I want to put my fist through the TV.

Alice: Eddie’s face though, is like, huh? Like this, this man has never picked up a condom in his life. What did you think was going to happen? Eddie?

Bex: Well, he doesn’t because he’s a good Catholic boy from Texas. I mean, that’s, that’s the trifecta of not knowing about sex education.

Alice: Oh my god, literally. Literally. Yeah.

Ellen: But he just looks so flabbergasted. He’s just like, huh, what, what do you, how did that happen? Did the stork visit you? Um, no, I don’t know. We don’t get any more of the reaction after the open mouth shock.

Alice: Shit, we held hands too tightly in the back of the car again.

Ellen: It wasn’t that thing we did in the hospital. you know, in the janitor’s closet.

Alice: Oh my god, it probably was. Poor Chim’s trying to wake up from his [00:18:00] coma. Chris wanders off because his parents are making him a sibling in the closet.

Ellen: Anyway.

Bex: But you’re right, if we don’t get any further it’s like Shannon drops that bombshell and then suddenly we’re at Bobby’s apartment. Yeah.

Ellen: There’s some weird transitions actually in this.

Bex: This is such a weird episode. I, I feel like it’s like three different episodes that got put together in the writer’s room.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: Just like everybody wrote, it’s like that writing project where you write a little bit, then you fold it over and you pass it on. I feel like they had a And then the next person writes something and they pass it on, then you open it up and that’s what you’ve got, that’s your story.

Alice: I feel like they had a lot to, like, do, and then The network were like, “Oh, hey, by the way, like, have a good, like, last two episodes.”

And they were like, “Two? I thought we said 24, not 18. Fuck.”

Bex: No, but they knew they were coming back for season three, right? They’d been signed for more than one [00:19:00] season.

Ellen: By this stage, they would have, surely. Because don’t they write and then film, like, a couple of weeks later? Like, they’re not, the whole season isn’t written before the filming begins.

Bex: No.

Alice: I think back then It was a slower sort of process. Like, I know now they’re literally filming like a month before the episodes come out. But back then, I think it was a longer sort of process.

Ellen: Yeah, okay.

Bex: But yeah. They had to have known there was a season three because otherwise the ending of season two would be evil if that was the way that the episode, the series was gonna end.

Yeah, right. Yeah, right.

Ellen: I haven’t watched the last episode yet, so don’t tell me, but, um, I’m so looking forward to it now that you say it. Um, the, I, this second section is actually really good. I like it. I like it. Like, compared to what we’ve just had, this middle section. [00:20:00]

Bex: Is this the therapy session?

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause Bobby is on the, firstly, he’s on the phone to Athena and

Alice: He’s decided that, um, he’s, he’s going to embark on a project so grand and so vast that he won’t have a moment to even think about something as insignificant as possibly having his life’s work taken away from him.

Ellen: Yeah. And he’s feeling really good about the whole suspension thing, obviously.

Alice: Um, yeah, he’s decided he’s going to plan him and Athena a real wedding, but obviously he won’t make any decisions without Athena.

Ellen: Yeah. Um, but she’s totally cool with that. She’s like, you go right ahead, as long as I can choose the dress.

Bex: Honestly, I think Bobby should have been allowed to choose the dress.

Alice: Um, but yeah, so they, they do some cute relationshipy things, um, then hang up and then there’s a knock on Bobby’s door and Buck just barges in. [00:21:00]

Bex: And as he’s barging in, he’s like, Hey, am I bothering you? You’d tell me if I was bothering you, right? I must be bothering you. But he’s already three quarters of the way into the apartment, making himself comfortable.

Alice: He’s like making a sandwich in the kitchen. “Like, am I bothering you?” Bobby’s like, “no, you’re not bothering me.”

Ellen: You weren’t in the middle of anything, were you?

Alice: And Buck’s like, “Good, when are you coming back?” So Bobby says he might not be coming back and Buck just goes, “That’s unacceptable. We need to get you unsuspended. Uh, maybe I can talk to the chief, testify on your behalf, that’d help, right?”

And Bobby just goes, “You might get suspended too.” And then we get this great, like, it’s so, Buck says that the place doesn’t work without Bobby. And we get this cut to the 118 where everyone’s standing at attention in a line. As Chim examines them.

Bex: I found this so interesting because having what just watched season, what season are we up to?

[00:22:00] Season eight. And having seen in season eight, this very, this scene, very much this scene multiple times. It’s so very, it’s so very obvious.

Alice: It’s so hard being vague for Ellen, but yeah, this exact scene. This is, it’s this, but we haven’t seen it at this point. This is the first time we see it and now we know where it comes from.

Bex: Yes, exactly. It’s, but I think, I think it’s one of those things where they had Chim do it and then they, they decided to replicate it for later on. So it’s like, it’s feedback loop . Mm-Hmm. . But the imp. But it’s very much the implication that Chim has learned this. Yeah. This is how he thinks a captain is supposed to act, even though I doubt Bobby has ever done anything like this.

Alice: To be fair, like he’s absolutely, and he even says later, he um, like he was just doing it to rag on them. Um, cause like he’s, he’s not being serious at all. [00:23:00] Like Buck just goes, “so we’re doing lineups now?” And he just goes, “stow it, Buckley.” I think, is he wearing sunglasses in this scene as well?

Bex: Yeah, he’s got like his um, top down sunglasses on.

Alice: Sunglasses on. Sunglasses on.

Bex: Yeah.

Alice: Yeah. Um, and he’s loving. Then we go, then we go back to Bobby’s apartment and

Ellen: He’s loving it. He’s having a great time .

Alice: And um, Bobby says, yeah, he is at this point. Yeah. Bobby says it’s been two shifts, two shifts. So like, Buck’s already, “Like, no. I’m like, we, we can’t deal with this, Bobby, you need to come back.”

And it’s been two shifts.

Bex: Um, but yeah, so Bobby’s confused because he thought that having Chimney would be in charge would be easier than bringing in an external captain because Chimney was their friend. And Buck’s like, yeah, Chimney is my friend. Intern Captain Han is a monster.

He’s like, So we go back to the line up.

Ellen: Yeah, we go back to Chim, Chim’s like, “Listen up. The word of the day is hose maintenance.” And Hen’s just like, “nah. [00:24:00] I’m out.”

Alice: Yeah. Hen literally just leaves. She’s like, “I’m out.” And walks off. And like, he

Bex: Which is further evidence to when we were watching, um, “Bobby Begins” and I was saying that Hen and Sal were the menaces that were running all the captains out?

This is, this is why.

Alice: But like, Chim doesn’t even bother to like, which is why he’s definitely not being serious. Because Hen’s just like, nope. And leaves. And Chim’s like, yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. Whereas, like, if Buck had done that, he would have been like, “Buckley, get back here!” So he’s literally only doing it to screw with Buck.

Ellen: Yeah, I don’t know why they’re all still playing along, like, uh, like, wouldn’t they all just go, no, come on, just leave, like, you know.

Alice: Well, again, it’s been two shifts, so he’s done this twice so far.

But, um, then we cut to, um, Bobby’s apartment, and Hen’s now there. in her civvies. Um, Bobby says

Bex: Bitching about Han.

Alice: Yeah. Bobby says, um, he’s just being conscientious and Hen goes, [00:25:00] conscientious or mad with power? And we go back to the 118 where, um, Dumb and Dumber are rolling hoses and Chim goes, “That’s not the most efficient way to do it, guys.”

Um, and then we go back to, it’s one of those scenes that just like cuts It’s back and forth, but it’s really, really well done. Yeah. Um, because like half the time you think that he’s talking to, like, the previous person. Um, and then it’s another one of the members of the

Ellen: bitching. Yeah, they all, they all go and have a bitch to him.

Alice: Um, yeah. So yeah, so, Bobby explains that a week ago Chimney was one of you, now he’s responsible for all of them. Um, it’s an adjustment for everyone. And Hen goes, “well, how long will we be adjusting? Because responsible Chimney’s freaking me out.” Um, and then we go back to the 118 where Chim’s showing Dumb and Dumber and Hen how it’s done.

Um, where he’s like rolling the hose nice and tight and they’re just [00:26:00] watching. They’re just like, okay, like, cause he’s literally just doing it. Like he’s not even showing them how he’s like, just doing it for them.

Bex: He’s showing off all of, all of the practice that he did those months when he was not allowed out and all he did was practice rolling shit.

Ellen: He’s showing, he’s got this down to a T. He’s getting it back, getting his own back cause he had to do it so much.

Alice: Yeah. Um, yeah. Hen says it’s not good and he’s not he’s not Bobby. And Bobby says you shouldn’t expect him to be, and you should tell him that.

Bex: But it’s clear that Chim expects himself to be like Bobby because we then cut to him.

He’s trying so hard. He’s trying to cook them lunch. And while I, while I fully, I fully believe that Chim can cook, he can’t cook to Bobby’s level. No. And he is trying to cook shaking beef for the 118 and

Alice: Hang on, hang on, why is it shaking beef? [00:27:00]

Bex: Because you shake it.

Alice: Because you shake it. Thank you, Chim.

Bex: But, I mean, I would just preface that I’m a white Australian girl and far be it for me to critique a Korean American man on how to cook Vietnamese food, um, but that’s not how you cook shaking beef and even I know that. Because he’s literally got three pieces of steak in a pan and flipping them backwards and forwards when it should be tiny little bite sized pieces of beef that you shake around in the pan.

You should be able to literally shake it, not just flip the beef around. Um, but it doesn’t matter because as he’s flipping, the oil catches and the entire pan goes up in flames. In a firehouse! Well, I mean, what better place to set a fire than in a firehouse? Because there is a fire extinguisher, not like three feet away, which Hen goes and grabs and sprays it liberally all over the stovetop and the pan, putting out the fire.

Ellen: If they’re in the middle of the room like this, right? They’re on [00:28:00] an island bench in the middle of the room and it’s a frying pan that’s on fire. Surely you could just sort of take it off the heat and wait for the flames to go away rather than. Because fire extinguishers are really messy, like.

Bex: I would also question whether that fire extinguisher normally lives in that position.

Yeah, it’s right out there in was A, placed there for dramatic effect, or B, Hen had specifically put it there knowing that Chim was going to cook.

Alice: Yeah, Hen probably moved it there for Chim.

Bex: But dinner’s ruined.

Alice: Yeah, dinner’s very ruined. What? Yeah. But yeah. What was it that Bobby’s kid said The best place to catch on fire was a fire station.

Ellen: Yeah, I guess so. ? Yes.

Thankfully they didn’t have to yank a hose up from that they’d just rolled up from downstairs. ,

Bex: feed it up through the stairs. Yeah. Uh, so no one is getting shaking beef for dinner? They are getting pizza. Yes. [00:29:00] Um, but even though it is crappy pizza, apparently they are all supposed to still sit and eat as a family, as Eddie finds out when he grabs two slices and starts to walk away from the table, and Chimney demands him, demands that he has to sit down.

Alice: I wonder where Eddie was going? Like, back to the hoses? To the couch? Because he wasn’t going to the couch.

Bex: I don’t know where he was going, but I do love that we get Chim scolding him to sit down and then immediately we get Eddie in therapy with Bobby going, “I just, I just sat there. I didn’t know what to say.”

Like, did Chim hurt your feelings that much?

But no, he’s not talking about the pizza. He’s talking about Shannon.

Alice: He is talking about Shannon. Yes. Um, we should mention, so this whole time when all the 118 have been there, um, chatting, Bobby’s got like all this wedding stuff all over his table and it just like changes [00:30:00] slightly as, each members there.

Bex: And they all notice that it’s there and they all call him out on it. Like, are you sure we’re not interrupting? I’m not in your hair.

Alice: Like you’d tell me if I was bothering you, right? Like,

Bex: um, I was like, there’s, there’s, The level of exasperation and frustration is just sort of building with each person that shows up as Bobby really just wants to be working on this project and he keeps getting dragged into everyone’s drama.

Ellen: And it’s also like, how can you not think that you’re anyone’s father, Bobby? You are everyone’s father.

Bex: Especially when, after he gets done reassuring Eddie that, you know, If he and Shannon do decide to have another baby, they will figure it out, they, he’s already a good dad, he’ll, he’ll be a good husband.

Harry shows up.

Ellen: Oh yeah.

Bex: And I don’t know why Harry is there, because it seems like it’s the middle of the day, so shouldn’t the kid be in school? But he obviously heard that, you know, it’s Nash Family [00:31:00] Therapy Hour and he’s decided he’s going to join in. so

Alice: maybe it’s just like early afternoon, or like late afternoon.

Ellen: How does he even know where Bobby lives? Maybe they’ve gone over there to visit.

Bex: How did he get there?

Alice: Well, Michael’s at work, Athena’s at work, Bobby’s not at work. He’s like, I’ll pick up the kids.

Bex: Yeah, it’s just the most random inclusion of having Harry in there. It’s all the children. But it’s cute.

It’s very much all the, it’s cute though because he’s, um, he’s bitching to Bobby about there’s a school dance coming up and he wants to ask a girl out but he’s um, he’s really nervous because what if she says no?

Alice: What if she laughs at him?

Bex: Bobby’s like, “Well, what if she doesn’t? Um, you know, I was really nervous when I asked your mother out,” and Harry’s like, “Yeah, but you’ve got a fire engine.”

Ellen: And he’s like,

Bex: I was just waiting for the wheels to keep going. Like, can I borrow the fire engine?

Alice: Can I borrow it to ask this kid out? Um, and [00:32:00] Bobby goes, Oh, I did. And then, then we get Chim. Who’s also in family therapy.

Ellen: He’s like, they all hate me.

Alice: They don’t hate you, Chim.

Bex: Bobby says lying through his teeth after listening to him and Buck and probably Eddie as well at some point.

Alice: And, um, Chim’s like, “No, no, they do.” And then he like looks at all the wedding planning and goes, “This, this a bad time?” And Bobby’s like, “It’s fine.” But yeah, Chim says, when the chief asked him to take over, he thought it’d be fun. Couple weeks of bossing everyone around, making Buck wash his car. What’s not to love?

Except apparently everything. Um, so yeah, he literally took it because he wanted to make Buck wash his car.

Bex: I guess they also figured that it would be temporary. You know, they’re expecting it just to be a couple of shifts and he can have fun and then he can go back to just being Chimney. Um, But he still has [00:33:00] to work with these people, so like, yeah.

He might actually have to like, lead them out on calls. Yeah.

Ellen: For more than one day. I

Alice: don’t, I don’t think he thought of the whole like, on call thing. He was definitely just like, oh yeah, like, this’ll be fun. And then they got to an accident and he’s just like, oh fuck, this is not fun.

Ellen: But Bobby talks him into it, he’s like, “You know, you know this team, you know what they’re capable of.

You just have to trust them and yourself.” So good advice, Bobby.

Alice: Thanks Dad.

Bex: Thanks I do think that if they had let Interim Captain Han go for a little longer, Chim would make a good captain.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: If they gave him the chance to, like, fight. really find himself in the role, he would do a really good job.

Alice: If he didn’t fuck around to start with, absolutely.

Ellen: Well, later on when, okay, I’m jumping ahead here, but later on when he said, when Hen [00:34:00] calls him out for calling Bobby, I was like a little bit disappointed. I’m like, I thought Chim could have done this. He could have known that, like, he didn’t, why’d you have to make him call Bobby about that?

Anyway.

Bex: Yeah, it, they just, like, even the writers are undermining their own character. Yeah, yeah. By not allowing him to come up with his own solutions. Although I do agree with him that, you know, it’s not exactly cheating because it’s, he’s using the resources at his disposal. Yeah, he’s using his resources, it’s fine.

I mean, it’s the, it’s the equivalent of Googling. It’s just, it happens to be a human Google.

Alice: It’s like, it’s like at work. Like we’ll be like, Oh, I’ll just look that up. And I think customers think that we have like this magical system that tells us about all the products. We literally just Google it.

You’re literally just Googling it. Um, like you could Google it yourself guys, but no, I’m getting paid to Google it for you. This is fine.

Bex: That’d be a good job. I’d be happy to be paid for the Google shit. [00:35:00]

Alice: Yeah, except you’ve got to deal with the people who want it Googled.

Bex: Yeah, no, I don’t want to deal with the people. Can I just Google it?

Ellen: All right, well, that is the end of the fun part. Everything from here is just questionable to me. I was like.

Alice: Yeah, then we go to a massive, um, work health and safety violation, which I think that it’s, what do they call it? It’s like O S H A, like OSHA.

Bex: Osha.

Alice: Yeah, there you go.

Bex: Yeah, so we’ve got another one of interim Captain Han’s calls.

He’s the lead for this one. But let’s set it up first and let’s see if I can get through this without screaming. So we are at a chocolate factory and the winners of the sixth grade bake sale, their prize is a tour of a chocolate factory, I guess? Which just sounds like a field trip, but sure. But they are [00:36:00] not just observing the process of the chocolate being made.

They are actually on the factory floor being led through and around the machines and up on the gangplank and gangways. They are not in suits. They do not have hair nets on. Um, it’s,

Ellen: yeah.

Bex: Yeah, it’s a massive OSHA violation.

Alice: Yeah, massively. Like, I’ve been to

Ellen: Not in any way hygienic.

Alice: I’ve been to like a chocolate factory thing and it’s all like behind glass, like you just sort of walk on the outside and look in.

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: Yeah. Um, did you ever go to the Cadbury factory while it was

Bex: No, I never went when they, when they had tours.

Alice: That was like the only part of being in Tasmania. What were you doing?

Bex: Living in Tasmania.

Ellen: You don’t go to places like that when you live near them, come on.

Bex: You don’t have to tour shit when you’re a local.

Alice: Wait, have you even been to um, Oh, what’s the, uh, Port Arthur?

Bex: Yes. Okay. I’ve been to Port [00:37:00] Arthur.

Alice: Okay, at least you’ve been to like, I was about to say, have you been to Hobart? Then I’m like, no wait, I’m pretty sure you live there.

Bex: Yeah.

No, I mean like the historical stuff you do go to because you probably end up going there by a school for an excursion.

Alice: Well, that was mainly why I was like, cause like, I remember there was a school camp that, um, some of the kids did. I never went on like the voluntary school camps. Um. Yeah. But yeah, there was like a school camp to Tasmania and they went to the chocolate factory and brought a whole bunch of stuff back.

So I was like, yeah, did you go at school? But no, you didn’t.

Bex: No, no. Local schools, Cadbury’s was not. From my school anyway, we never went to Cadbury’s as part of the tour.

Alice: Useless, stupid school.

Ellen: We went to one in Margaret River, I want to say when we were visiting Perth and my kids just thought it was like Christmas.

because not only can you watch the chocolate being made [00:38:00] through a glass window, you can’t go anywhere near the chocolate that’s being made, but they had like big bowls of like chocolate that you could eat.

Bex: The factory seconds? Yeah. Yeah.

Ellen: You weren’t allowed to, because it was after COVID, you weren’t allowed to just touch it with your hands, which I’m sure there were plenty of kids who were just sticking their hands in and taking handfuls, but they had little, you know, scoops that you had to use to get it out.

But you could eat as much chocolate as you wanted and they were just like, it was like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Alice: But, but yeah, I went to the one at the ginger factory and yeah, you literally just walk like up a path next to it. And look in. And you’re like, oh yes, there’s chocolate.

Ellen: I don’t think they let anybody in to any kind of manufacturing facility with food.

Alice: Especially here. Like, it might be, maybe it’s just different in America. Cause like our healthcare is

Bex: I really don’t think so.

Alice: I don’t know.

Ellen: Americans, can you go into a chocolate manufacturing?

Bex: Yeah. I, I, I [00:39:00] highly doubt it. I think this was strictly for dramatic purposes. Um So the children are on a tour of the factory.

They have some parent help, um, and they also have the, the teacher who is leading the excursion. Um, and here’s where I start to get angry because the, one of the parent helpers turns to the teacher who I’m not even going to try and pronounce his name. I’m just going to call him Mr. D. And she says to him, “Are you sure that you are okay being here?

Isn’t this like an alcoholic touring a distillery?” Because apparently Mr. D used to be fat.

Ellen: Yeah, this is just a horrible thing to say to anybody.

Alice: Yeah, apparently he’s lost 195 pounds, which

Bex: But through sheer willpower. So not, so, oh, I don’t even know where to start my rant.

Alice: Um, that’s, that’s 88, about 88 and a half, um, kilos

Bex: So we’ve got [00:40:00] the, like, the sheer, um, Oh my god, I am so mad with this storyline that I’ve completely lost my words. But basically, they’re implying that fatness is because of laziness. Because he had the willpower to be thin. And the other parent says, oh, I greatly admire that. It’s the implication that everyone who is fat just isn’t, you know, strong enough mentally to get themselves thin, which is so wrong because there are so many hormonal conditions and physical conditions that it’s physically impossible, no matter how strong your willpower is, to lose weight because your body is fighting against that.

Um, and then, um, There is not, it’s not even counting, like, mental health conditions that are going to affect your willpower, that no matter how much you want to lose the weight, there are things going on in your brain that’s just, it is physically impossible to control [00:41:00] your calories the way that, so that you can do the whole calorie in calorie out thing.

Um, it also makes me really angry that, let’s say that Mr. D is one of those people who, His weight was simply due to overeating, and the overeating was because he was addicted to chocolate. Why are we playing off addiction for laughs? You would never have this show have an alcoholic go into a distillery and end up head first into a vat of something and have everyone go, Oh, isn’t this funny?

Alice: Isn’t it funny that Bobby fell asleep and set his whole apartment on fire? I laughed about it. It’s just For legal reasons, that was a joke. I absolutely like it. Yeah.

Ellen: We cried about that. Yeah.

Bex: Yeah, for some reason, you can have an addiction to drugs, you can have an addiction to alcohol, and that shows treat it seriously, but addictions to food, addictions to sugar, it can be [00:42:00] just as serious and just as debilitating, but because it’s food, it’s not as serious, and it can be played off for laughs.

Ellen: I mean, there’s also the, there are a lot of people out there who do have this kind of unhealthy relationship with food where they believe that. They’re being weak in, you know, giving in or whatever. So, but even so while that is true, you don’t need to play it this way on TV. Like, we don’t have to show this.

Bex: And then they like, they really, um, hammer the message home because at the end, uh, of the emergency, we find out that Mr. D didn’t lose the weight through sheer willpower. He got lap band surgery. And the parent help just looks absolutely horrified at him. It’s like, oh my god, I thought that you did this through hard work and you were a good person, but no, you cheated.

You, like, you failed at being a thin person.

Alice: Yeah, it’s fun. So I, [00:43:00] I did, um, the keto diet for three years and I was so miserable. Like, yeah, I lost a whole heap of weight, but I couldn’t eat anything I wanted. I was, literally, I would cry before, um, like, making a meal. Because I didn’t want to eat anything. I felt like shit.

I was tired all the time. Like, it was awful. I was also cold. Um, I did it because I had health, like, health issues and doctors wouldn’t take me seriously. So I was like, fine, I’ll lose the weight. And then guess what? I still had the health issues. I was just also colder.

Bex: But I would also say that the people who have lap band surgery, that’s not a walk in the park.

God, no. It’s surgery. It’s major surgery. And you, people have the lap band surgery and they run a serious risk of malnutrition because suddenly like the whole reason you lose weight with lap band surgery is your stomach cannot hold food. Yeah, you’re literally starving yourself. Yeah. Yes. [00:44:00] It’s not an easy thing.

It’s not a quick fix snap of the fingers golden bullet that makes the weight melt off you. It is serious surgery with serious consequences. Yeah. And you have to go through a lot of hoops in order to get it done. It’s not just, Oh, I feel like, Oh, I don’t feel like, you know, counting my calories and I don’t feel like doing exercise.

So I’m just going to have major abdominal surgery. That’s not how it works. So with that set up, our medical emergency is that the children are led to a vat of chocolate liqueur. But not chocolate liqueur, as in chocolate with alcohol. It’s just, it’s melted chocolate. They’re just calling it chocolate liqueur.

And they’re all given little sample cups so that they can taste the chocolate. And poor Mr. D, who is the equivalent of an alcoholic in a distillery right now, um, kind of falls off the wagon. [00:45:00] Both literally and figuratively. Um, because he gets his little sample cup of chocolate and, um,

Ellen: This was possibly the least subtle kind of lead up to a medical thing that I’ve.. that has been in this show.

Bex: I think everybody saw this coming.

Ellen: Because I’m looking at the vat of chocolate and

Alice: They’ve still got like a tray of chocolate like, cups of chocolate too, like, you’re the teacher, just turn around and go, can I get another one? And they’ll probably just give it to you.

Ellen: Like the look on his face.

Bex: I think Ellen pointed that out too.

Ellen: Yeah, as he, as he looked at the vat, I was like, he’s going in the vat, like.

Bex: Oh yeah. Yes.

Ellen: That’s.

Bex: He is Augustus Gloop. Yeah. Yes. Sure

Ellen: enough.

Alice: Which is exactly what happens. Like, I’m actually surprised that we didn’t get, like, a song after this.

Ellen: Yeah, some oompa loompas, like, parading around.

Bex: Oompa, loompa…

Ellen: No, don’t, we’re not doing the musical version [00:46:00] now.

Yeah, he climbs up on the little gangway that’s above the vat of chocolate and tries to get lean down to scoop up some more into his little cup and he can’t quite reach so he shuffles forward reaches down again and eventually he over balances.

Bex: Of course he does.

Alice: Never saw that coming.

Ellen: The 9-1-1 call is like, my colleague is drowning in dark chocolate.

And whoever’s on the other end of the line is like, Oh no, it’s one of these again. Better send the 118.

Bex: The dispatcher says what he’s a factory worker. And that could have worked. They could have done the, if they really desperately needed to have, oh, let’s drown a guy in chocolate. Why didn’t they have it as a factory worker?

Why did they have to make this fat phobic storyline [00:47:00] of the teacher falling in

Ellen: Because they thought it was funny.

Bex: Well, I wanna smack somebody upside the head. Yeah. ’cause it’s not funny. But yes, the one 18 get dispatched. Um, it’s really interesting ’cause they bring a ladder in with them and they, they set a ladder up across the vat so that Buck and Eddie can like balance on the ladder and try and pull this guy out.

Um. I don’t know why they didn’t just grab a rescue harness and use that, other than

Ellen: there’s a lot of things about this that I have questions about, because surely if they’ve got a great big vat like that just sitting there, wouldn’t they have some kind of protocol for, you know, for workplace health and safety you need to have plans in place for if stuff goes wrong.

You have like a list of risks, right?

Alice: Yeah, like somebody could drain it or something, like

Bex: Yeah, can’t they just [00:48:00] open the valve and drain it out? The chocolate’s Because it’s not like they can

Ellen: Yeah, they can’t use it anymore.

Alice: Or start scooping it out of buckets.

Ellen: It’s contaminated.

Bex: Yeah, like Yes. There’s no point of just leaving it in there.

Ellen: There are a lot of other things they could have done, apart from what they actually did. But anyway, they get up there on the ladder and they try to pull him out. They, and like, Buck and Eddie are trying to pull him out as hard as they can, and they can’t get him out of there, because he keeps getting sucked back down again.

Bex: Apparently it’s like, it’s quicksand, it’s like the physics of quicksand. Every time they pull him up, a low pressure pocket is created in the chocolate, and then the pocket pulls Mr. D back down.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: I’m not entirely sure if that is correct, but Hen sounds very certain when she says it.

Alice: I believe Hen.

Bex: We’ll, we’ll go with what Hen says. Um, [00:49:00] Chim steps up. He, he orders Hen to get Mr. D some oxygen. Take an O2 tank, rip off the mask, create an air tube. So that if he goes under, it will buy them some time for him to think.

So she does as instructed, she gets the tank, when, um, Buck and Eddie pull Mr. D up a little bit farther, she feeds the tube into his mouth, tells him to bite down on it so that if he goes under it’ll stay in his mouth. And then she turns to ask what her next orders are, and Chim is not there.

And Eddie’s looking around going, did our captain just run away? And one of the kids, because the teacher is drowning in chocolate, so of course the kids are all just standing around watching. Yeah, no one bothered to move them. No. Um, one of the kids says, oh, I think he went that way.

Ellen: It’s not traumatic at all to watch your teacher drowning in [00:50:00] chocolate.

Bex: No.

Ellen: Um, but, like, he goes under the chocolate again and apparently the breathing tube is doing its job, so okay, whatever. But Chim comes back and he’s got, like, a hose that’s coming from somewhere.

Bex: He’s got like, there’s a giant, another giant vat that he’s sort of, that’s hanging from a rod above him and he’s sort of pulling it along this little trolley path thing, words are failing me.

Um, if you’ve seen the episodes, you know what I’m talking about. So he pulls it closer to this vat, it has a hose connected to it with a trigger nozzle

Ellen: and then he starts pouring this white stuff in there, like some stuff in and Hen’s like, “What the hell are you doing?” And he says, “It’s cocoa butter. And it tempers the chocolate and decreases the viscosity,” and he just tells him to start [00:51:00] stirring.

And I don’t,

Alice: I don’t know. where this paddle came from, but Hens just got a paddle and started stirring. Um, but yeah, so they, like, thin out the chocolate, I guess, and they managed to pull him free.

Bex: Wouldn’t the people actually working in the chocolate factory know this? Since they’re the ones that make the chocolate.

Alice: You would think, right?

Ellen: Who knows? Um, and also, like, after they get him out of there, and, you know, Eddie and Buck are like, oh, that was, you know, quick thinking, whatever they give him, props for it, and Hen just says, “You called Bobby, didn’t you?” And I’m like, how did you have time to call Bobby? Like you were gone for like 10 seconds.

Alice: Hey Bobby, you know the guy who got trapped in trouble? What do I do? Uh, use Cocoa [00:52:00] Butter? Okay, cool. Thanks, bye.

Ellen: How does he know? I don’t know. It was just, the timing was weird.

Bex: Time is wibbly wobbly in this episode again. Yep.

Ellen: Anyway. Yeah. They did take, well, I felt sad that they sort of took away Chim’s competency here a little bit. Like he, he could have been, this could have been his like, saving grace for becoming the captain that he should be or whatever that he wanted to be. But instead, no, he just had to call Bobby for help. Yeah.

Bex: I know, poor Chim. It’s also a little, not only are they undermining interim captain Han, but it’s Hen who’s undermining him.

Ellen: Yeah, and she’s looking at him like,

Bex: she’s like, she immediately, immediately knows that he couldn’t do it. That that was not him, that he had to get help. And like, you didn’t have any ideas either, Hen. So for all of her talk later about, you know, her knowing that Chim could do it, she was doubting him.

Ellen: [00:53:00] Yeah. All right. So next. section is.

Bex: My notes are literally just like, blah, blah, blah. Cause this is so stupid.

Ellen: This is like the next, so we’ve, we’ve had parts one and two. Now this is like section three, which has a completely different tone to the previous sections that we’ve already had.

Bex: And I don’t understand why they needed this section at all.

Ellen: No, it doesn’t relate to,

Bex: it doesn’t relate to

Ellen: anything.

Bex: It doesn’t relate to anything. It just, it comes out of left field. And then it comes straight back in again. Speak of it again,

Ellen: kind of thing.

Bex: Yes.

Ellen: So, let’s just go quickly through it so we can get rid of it, because it’s useless.

Bex: Long story short, Maddie takes a call from a woman who is concerned that her brother is going to unalive himself.

He is apparently bipolar, um, there’s something about his meds, but basically he called her and said goodbye, and he’s, she is really concerned. So Maddie dispatches [00:54:00] police, but she stays on the phone with the woman, Nicole, as she is driving to her brother’s house. And just as Nicole gets to her house and sees her brother and sees all the police, she hangs up the phone.

And so Maddie, who has been on this call with her as she’s been driving and she’s been talking to Nicole and finding out a little bit about her, is suddenly left in the lurch because she does not know how the call ends. Which I would say would be Maddie’s every single call that she takes every single day.

Because that was, that’s the, the nature of A 9-1-1 dispatcher, and we know that because Abby was complaining about the same thing in Season 1.

Alice: Yeah, that’s exactly what I was gonna say. Like, it’s sort of a, it’s like they wanted to revisit that, but with Maddie.

Bex: But differently, because Abby, like Abby was saying, I don’t get to see what happens next, so they literally threw her into an emergency with Buck.

But they just, they take a different route with Maddie. But it’s [00:55:00] just why, why now? Why this call? Why?

Ellen: Yeah. Why this episode? This doesn’t

Bex: Why? Yeah.

Ellen: It’s not related to anything else. And while they do do a good, like, I, I felt the tension was really good in, in this, like, good. It was, it was high, I guess. Like, we, we were worried about this person too.

Alice: I think they just wanted to, like, mention that, cause, like, she took the job in dispatch because she couldn’t be a nurse because she was worried that Doug would find her. And now So she took a job behind, like, behind the phone so that no one could see her. And now, like, because Doug’s gone, she’s like, well, why aren’t I back on the front, like, you know, back on the front line?

Ellen: Okay, so maybe it’s just like they needed to shoe in, shoehorn in a little bit of her character development, but they didn’t know where to put it, so they just shoved it into the middle of this episode. And that’s it.

Bex: And I think that particular [00:56:00] plotline would be an interesting one. Because yes, she, the 9-1-1 call was just Buck’s way of getting her to, something to do while she was in Los Angeles.

And it would be interesting to see her explore going back and being a nurse or doing something else over several episodes. Like, why couldn’t they have let Maddie fully explore something outside of 9-1-1, and then having her come back and go, no, actually, this is where I belong. But they do all of that within like 10 minutes in one episode.

And so it just doesn’t have the emotional resonance that I think it really deserved.

Alice: I mean, to me, I do, really like the last scene of Maddie, I guess. In this episode, because they only do it like they have this and then they have the cafe scene and that’s it. And like, I do like it.

I get goosebumps every time I watch it.

Bex: It also feels like, so not only is it a rehash of Abby from [00:57:00] season one, but it’s also kind of the rehash of, um, Maddie’s conversation with Gloria, because in that episode, Maddie was saying that as a nurse, she was there. Sort of from the beginning to the middle and the end.

And as a 9-1-1 dispatcher, she’s missing parts of it. And that’s what prompts Gloria to tell her to go on the ride along so that she can see what happens in the parts that she’s missed. Oh yeah. So, I don’t know. It’s Like I said, I don’t understand why we’re getting this storyline in this episode. Yeah, in this episode.

It’s in this part of Maddie’s storyline. It’s obviously, like I said, the sheet of paper got passed around the writer’s room and someone wrote this on and then folded it over and passed it on and so they’ve just included it in the episode even though I don’t feel like it thematically [00:58:00] or even logically fits in this episode.

Ellen: Yep. It’s got nothing to do with wishing anything.

Bex: Yeah! Exactly! Right? So if this episode was the be careful what you wish for, what is Maddie wishing for here?

Alice: I guess she’s wishing to see the end?

Bex: But then why is it “be careful what you wish for?” Because it’s not, it’s not be careful what you wish for because you might get it and it’s all great.

It’s be careful what you wish for because you’re going to get it and it’s going to be shit.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: It’s going to ruin your life. And I don’t think this, don’t think any, I don’t think Maddie’s life is ruined. No. In this.

Someone else’s life is going to be ruined though, because, um, we’re going to cut to, Ned and I don’t even think we, why do they never name the women in this episode on this show?

Ellen: Do they not?

Bex: They very rarely named the women, but we have Ned and his wife, it is their 25th anniversary. Um, and they seem very much in [00:59:00] love.

They’re going to go out for dinner, which the, the wife seems a little bit disappointed about because apparently they always go to Roberto’s and maybe she was hoping for something different this year.

There is a little bit of, we’re going to shoehorn the theme in because the husband asks her, “Oh, um, were you wishing that we went somewhere different?” And she goes, “Wishes are for suckers.” So somebody remembered at some point that there was a theme, perhaps, maybe.

Ellen: Maybe whoever wrote this episode or, you know, had a part in writing this episode was having a really bad day and they were just like, You should never wish for anything, it never turns out, and that just turned into the theme.

Alice: They really wished to write for 9-1-1, and then they got this episode, and they’re like, fuck this shit.

Bex: Like, ah, shit. Yeah. Uh, so, Ned goes to get the keys, because while they’ve been having this conversation, the doorbell rang. [01:00:00] Ned goes to get his keys, the wife goes to open the door, uh, as she opens the door a car immediately just screeches down the street.

Not at all suspicious. And there is a box on the porch, uh, plain box, there’s really nothing on there to indicate what it is and where it’s from. It has, uh, tape sealing it with fragile and there is a little, um, label down the bottom saying “a gift for you”. And so she automatically assumes that it’s from Ned, her husband.

Ellen: And she opens it right there on the steps.

Bex: She says, I… no, she doesn’t get to open it. She’s like, “Oh, I guess you can still surprise me.” And she decides to shake the box, even though it says fragile on it. And it’s like, shake, shake, shake, boom. and it explodes in her hands. So here, how many, how many minutes into the episode are we and we finally get the mail bomb that they were pushing so hard in the promo?[01:01:00]

Yeah.

Ellen: Oh, the 118, like, Athena is already there again when the 118 pull up. She’s got some kind of teleportation going on in this episode. “There was a mail bomb, um, the wife’s in rough shape, but she’s in one piece.” The bomb squad’s still a couple of minutes out, but Immediately they

Bex: You guys can go

Ellen: Yeah, immediately they move in anyway.

Bex: Bomb squads a few minutes out, but hey, you guys go on up, I’m sure it’s fine.

Alice: Yeah, I’m sure there’s no other bombs, it should be

Ellen: fine.

The bomb’s already gone off, what could be the there’s no risk now, the bomb’s already gone. Um

Bex: Oh my god.

Alice: Athena’s like, fuck em, Bobby’s not working, off you go kids. They keep interrupting his wedding planning. Get the fuck on that porch.

Bex: But interestingly, we get another, um, another scene of Chim forgetting that he’s in charge and just immediately going in to do his job and [01:02:00] forgetting that he should actually be delegating all of this to the other members so that he can, like, step back and take charge.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: And Hen calls him on that. It says that there is, you know, there is protocol that he needs to be following and he’s like, fuck the protocol. I am the most experienced paramedic. I am doing this. Um, because apparently the woman, uh, he’s diagnosed her with a bilateral pneumothorax. Because apparently once you are captain of the 118, it increases your ability to look at somebody and diagnose them.

Alice: Yeah. It’s like a level up, um, or it’s, it’s part of the, Like, the cap hat. When you put it on, you get, you unlock the ability to diagnose someone just by looking at them.

Ellen: They need to release the pressure, or she’ll suffocate. So, no time to get to a hospital.

Bex: It’s basically, it’s collapsed [01:03:00] lungs, right? She’s got, both lungs are collapsed.

That’s what a pneumothorax is? Hang on, let me Google. I was about to do the same thing! Uh,

Alice: Air, yeah, air’s like in both lungs causing them to collapse.

Bex: So they need to create a, an exit path for the air so that the lungs can actually expand and contract in her chest cavity.

Alice: Chim’s like cutting away her clothes and getting ready to do it and Eddie’s just standing there like, “I did like heaps of these in combat, just like let me do it.”

Bex: Which is, isn’t that exactly, or similar to like the very first scene that Eddie has?

Ellen: Yeah, where Buck is trying to do it, and he’s like, I can do this.

Bex: No, no, I’ve done this in combat situations, let me do it.

Alice: That’s why Bobby wanted him, because he’s done a whole bunch of like random field things that aren’t in medical books.

Bex: Yes, [01:04:00] but no, Chim, Chim’s gonna do this. Eddie gets put on babysitting duties because he and Buck have to haul the husband away, um, while Chim and Hen pretty much operate on his wife on the porch as the bomb squad is filing into the house around them.

Ellen: Oh my god.

Alice: I do like though that like Buck and Eddie like grab him and move him and then immediately just like come back and it’s like where did they put him?

Bex: I’m gonna say they handed him off to LAPD.

Ellen: Well they just took him away from the house and went okay you stay here we’re just gonna go back.

Alice: Stay. Stay. Stay. Stay. Stay. Stay. Okay. Okay. Stay. Okay. We’re good.

Bex: I mean, to sum it up, the, the incisions work, uh, the, the woman starts screaming, which I guess means that she can breathe.

Ellen: Yeah, it doesn’t look comfortable. God.

Bex: No. So, um, they [01:05:00] get her on the gurney and into the ambulance, her, um, her husband goes with her, and I do note that when he was trying to get back to his wife in Buck and Eddie are, pulling him away, he was trying to tell his wife that they actually weren’t going to Roberto’s, they were gonna go to Fiji.

Alice: I know, I was like, oh!

Bex: So he was going to surprise her.

Ellen: Oh, I didn’t hear that part. Oh, that’s sad.

Bex: Yeah. So he gets into the ambulance with her, and then, you know, In this, we, I don’t understand this shot or this transition because he’s in, the husband is in the ambulance with his wife and he’s telling her that he loves her.

And as he’s doing that, the audio slows down. It gets really echoey. The ambulance door slams shut and we see Eddie’s reflection in the window. Yeah, I think. [01:06:00] The audio from, the audio from the husband saying that he loves starts to overlap with the audio from the next scene, which is a little bit later where Eddie is at the station, um, talking to Shannon on a FaceTime call.

Alice: I think they’re trying to do more foreshadowing, but it’s in a way,

Bex: I don’t

Ellen: know,

Bex: but it doesn’t make sense.

Ellen: I thought originally it was like, Eddie having like a epiphany about, You know, loving Shannon, whatever, but, but he does say on the, at the end of the FaceTime call, he tells Shannon that he says, I love you.

And she says it back and I’m like, okay, well, they’re clearly, they can say that to each other. So it’s not that big a deal. Like, I don’t know. It’s a weird kind of, uh,

Bex: it’s, it’s, it’s weird. So Shannon is having lunch with Eddie’s abuela and with Christopher, but it’s not [01:07:00] lunch because it must be close enough to No, they say, it literally said we’re having lunch, but then Eddie is kind of scolding Shannon because they’re having ice cream, and he’s saying, you know, good luck trying to get Chris to sleep, like, later that night.

Yeah. And The ice cream would have worn off.

Alice: Yeah, like, when else are you supposed to give a child ice cream? Like, do you give it to them for breakfast so they’ll sit down? Like, I don’t understand.

Bex: Yeah, it’s got a, it’s got a 12 hour half life, you know what I mean? You’ve got to give it to them, like, two days in advance.

Alice: Like, I mean, if we all learn anything from that fanfic, you’ve got to give it to them before dinner. So that’s what she’s doing, it’s fine.

Ellen: Yeah, so, at the end, you know, Eddie says, I love you, and Shannon says, I love you, and then Buck like appears from above. He just drops, because he’s sitting like next to the, one of the trucks.

And apparently Buck was doing something on top of the truck. And he just like,

Bex: he literally drops in.

Ellen: Yeah. And [01:08:00] he’s like, “Ooh, when’s the wedding?” It’s like, “um, what? We’re already married.”

Bex: But the panic on Eddie’s face when he goes, “wait, we don’t have to get married again, do we?”

Alice: Once again, let’s hope that Chris got Shannon’s brains.

Ellen: It was just a weird, weird, weird thing.

Bex: It is. It is very weird because Buck very well knows that they’re still married. They’ve, they’ve had their heart to heart about Shannon.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: Um, I don’t know. But he, he makes a joke that, um, Eddie should talk to Bobby. Maybe he can get him a discount, since, you know, Bobby’s already planning a wedding.

He can plan Eddie and Shannon’s vow renewal or something at the same time. But that whole scene was weird, and I don’t understand. Uh, so, next we’re going to go back to Maddie. Uh, who Basically, she’s got a job interview, so she can’t do her next shift. She’s telling Sue, “I’m sorry, I said that I would cover that shift, but I can’t because I’ve got a job [01:09:00] interview.

I’m not even sure I’m supposed to be telling you that, but I am going to tell you that.”

Alice: Yeah, Maddie sucks at secrets.

Ellen: Apparently.

But like, yeah, Sue says like, “Josh told me that you had a talk,” and Maddie’s, you know, trying to make her excuses as to why she’s thinking of leaving, and Sue’s like, I think you underestimate your contribution here.

Bex: Yeah, she said that specifically, she says that she spent years not having a voice, and now that she has her voice back, she feels like what she says doesn’t matter.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: Sue says, I think you underestimate yourself. Um, and Maddie goes like, “I appreciate that, but. Here at 9-1-1, I am just the person who sends help. I need to go back to being the person who gives it.”

Ellen: Yeah. I’m off to be a firefighter. See ya.

Right. That was a [01:10:00] very little scene, but we’re going back to, uh, Eddie and Shannon.

Bex: And it looks like it’s date night. They’re at a fancy restaurant somewhere.

Ellen: Yeah. It’s very sweet. It’s very sweet. And then it’s kind of sad.

Bex: So it starts off with like literally sweet because Eddie gives Shannon a box of chocolates. Do you think he bought them? from the factory when they were there on that tour.

Alice: Oh no, they absolutely gave it to him for free and he was just like, oh, fuck yeah.

Bex: They’re wheeling Mr. D out and the factory workers are just handing them gift boxes as they’re walking out the door.

Alice: Yeah, they’re like, thanks so much for your help. Like, here, have some chocolate.

Ellen: Here, have this chocolate. We can’t use it anymore because a guy fell in.

Alice: It’s like the weird seconds as well and Eddie’s just hoping that Shannon doesn’t notice.

She’s like, why are they all chocolate orange? Like, it’s supposed to be a variety pack.

Bex: She asks if it’s a clump kind of Forrest Gump [01:11:00] reference, which sends Eddie down this really weird metaphor. Because apparently life is not like a box of chocolates. Life is like a vat of molten chocolate. Sometimes you fall in and it drags you down, but it’s warm and it’s sweet.

And Shannon’s just like, please stop talking.

Alice: Shannon’s like, yeah, please, Chris, get my brains, please, for the love of God, get my brains.

Ellen: He’s trying, bless him.

Bex: He’s, he’s trying.

Alice: Is he?

Ellen: He’s, well, he says he’s telling her that he, he didn’t realize how much he missed her when she was gone. And it’s kind of obvious that Shannon’s just like, well, actually, you know, she’s not into this at all.

And he says that, he brings it back to Christopher again, he’s like, “We were so young, we weren’t ready, but we had this amazing kid, and he’s the greatest thing in my life,” and, you know.

Bex: I think [01:12:00] he brought it back to Christopher because he’s trying to convince himself, because he’s gearing up to go all in with Shannon again, because they’re about to have a second kid.

Alice: Yeah. Once again, he’s only in it. For the kid.

Bex: For the kid. Yeah. So he’s trying to convince himself and convince Shannon that they need to go back to being full on husband and wife because there is now another child and Eddie has been brought up to believe that this is how you have children. That you have to have a mother and a father in a stable some sort of relationship.

Ellen: Somehow I always forget, I keep forgetting that she had said before that she was pregnant. I don’t know whether it was overshadowed by what comes next but I was like, I got to this point and I was like, yeah, he’s just trying to he’s just realized that he, you know, still wants to be a family, whatever. And then it’s like, Oh yeah, the pregnancy.

Okay. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Bex: Yeah. Um, and like, he literally, he says to her, um, he wants, [01:13:00] he was, he was, he wished there’s that slightly demented warped version of the theme. He wished for a sign and he got it because you’re pregnant and Shannon just says, “Yeah, actually I’m not.”

Ellen: And

Bex: I have to, the music producer is, um, on point for this.

Ellen: Is at it again.

Bex: The song that’s playing over this scene is called “We Could Have”. At about this point in the conversation, the chorus kicks in. Um, And the chorus is just, we could have done better, we could have tried harder, we could have been stronger, we could have gone further, we could have been so much more.

It’s like, oh my god, just pick up that knife and twist it. Just, just really jam it in there and twist.

Ellen: I still had no idea what was coming at this point, so, like.

Alice: Yeah, see, like, I had no idea the first time I watched it what was coming, and the second time, [01:14:00] like, I was literally sobbing from this scene onwards until the episode ended.

was like, had been over for like 10 minutes. Like full on sobbing. It was so much worse the second time.

Ellen: Yes, if I ever get around to watching it again, which maybe I won’t give in your reaction, but um, yeah.

Alice: Like it’s, I feel like, let’s finish this scene and then talk about the Shannon of it all before I go, because we can always patch it to the end. Yeah, as well. Because there’s a lot that I want to say, like, I have to say about Shannon, and I want to hear Ellen’s opinion of this scene. Okay.

Bex: But even, um, just not even considering what happens with the rest of it, just the whole them at this dinner talking about their relationship, and the music saying that whatever their relationship is they could have done better, they could have tried harder, they could have been so much more than they were, it’s just, [01:15:00] Oh, it’s so painful.

Alice: It’s so hard. Yeah.

Bex: So, Shannon says that she’s not pregnant. She was just late, and she freaked out, and she freaked Eddie out, and she’s sorry for freaking him out, but this is, it’s gotta be a relief that she’s not pregnant, right? Um, but Eddie is still, he has made the decision, he is all in, and he’s not going, he’s not, he can’t backtrack.

He’s gone like, “Oh, uh, actually, no, I’ve, I’ve made this decision. I’m going down this path and I’m going to continue down this path no matter what.” Um, and Shannon says, “well, actually, um, I don’t want to go down that path anymore with you.”

Alice: Yeah. Like Eddie literally says it doesn’t change a thing.

And Shannon says it does for her because she wrote this letter a few years ago, right after she left or when she didn’t come [01:16:00] back. And the letter was to Christopher trying to explain why she couldn’t be there. And she figured that if for some reason she never found her way back that he’d want answers and he needed to know that it wasn’t his fault, that his mother didn’t leave because she didn’t love him.

 She left because she did love him. Um, but she never sent it. And then. when she found out that she wasn’t pregnant, she took the letter out and read it and she never wants to have to send that letter. And Eddie’s like, “Well why would you?” And Shannon says because if she tries to do it again before she’s ready, there won’t be a second chance.

She doesn’t want to fail him again or Eddie. Um, she’s still learning how to be someone’s mother and after that maybe she can learn how to be someone’s wife. And Eddie goes, “Well, we’re still married.” And right at the end of the scene, Shannon just goes, “I think we should get a divorce.” [01:17:00] So the first time I watched this, I was like, what the fuck, Shannon?

Like, you’re the one that wanted back in his life and now you’re leaving again? Yeah. And I’m really curious to see what you think of Shannon at this point, Ellen.

Ellen: Yeah, watching it, I was just thinking, like, Girl, you really need to go and speak to a therapist about this. And someone who’s not Bobby, as Bex said later.

Alice: Shannon’s also at Bobby’s dining table, just like

Ellen: Like an actual therapist. Because, I mean, in all seriousness, she did almost certainly have postnatal depression at some point. Like, or at least Uh, you know, she felt that she couldn’t be the mother that Chris deserved or whatever. Like she did look after him, obviously while Eddie was away.

And then she left later. Um, [01:18:00] so there’s something going on there with her not believing that she’s going to be like, she doesn’t want to let him down, all that stuff. It’s like a pro it’s like a self esteem issue or something’s going on with her. So I was just like, you don’t have to keep running away, Shannon. Like she’s obviously thought it was worth a try and now she’s decided actually no, it’s not going to work now. I’m not ready yet, she says, like next time I might be, but you know, it’s not now. So I don’t know. I don’t know what, what could have happened if the worst didn’t happen next.

I don’t know. But. I just, I felt so sad for her that she, she’d obviously gone through a lot in the last sort of eight years or however old. How old is Chris now? Ten? Nine? Um, and now she’s sort of putting herself through it again.

Alice: Five or six, yeah.

Ellen: I [01:19:00] don’t know. You know, she’s decided she’s going to leave again and put everyone else and herself through all that pain again. So I don’t, I don’t know what the way forward would have been for her.

Alice: Yeah, now that, like, I’ve seen, obviously, the rest of the show, like, Eddie just needs to subject, stop subjecting women to him.

Bex: I, I find it really interesting, Ellen, that you, this is your first time watching and you are almost immediately on Shannon’s side.

Ellen: No, I, not necessarily, like I

Bex: Not, not necessarily on her side, but you seem to empathize with her, whereas I think there are sections of the fandom that absolutely despise Shannon, because they are looking at it from Eddie’s perspective, and they’re, she’s mistreated.

Ellen: Oh, she hasn’t done anyone any favors with any of this stuff, like, she’s

Alice: The first time I watched, like, I [01:20:00] Was I didn’t not like her, but I definitely didn’t like her. And now, like, justice for Shannon, honestly. Like, I Fuck off, Eddie. I’ll take Shannon.

Ellen: I don’t agree with any of the decisions that she’s made through this whole thing.

It’s just, I’m sad for her. I think that what she’s gone through is terrible. Um, and not just with the ending, but like overall, like it’s, it’s a tragic, very tragic story.

Bex: It’s one of those situations I feel where people are projecting how they would react in this situation. And perhaps they are looking at it going, well, I would never leave my child.

Um, I cannot even fathom. walking away from my kids. So I just, I do not understand this character and I do not like [01:21:00] that she had this weakness of her personality and of her character that she could walk away from her child. But if we as a fandom are correct and Eddie and Shannon literally had Chris very close out of high school, she would have been what, 18, 19 when Chris was born?

So she’s a teenager. A teenager who then became a single mother, who then became a teenage single mother of a disabled kid. And she held it together as best she could, until she broke. And she couldn’t take it anymore.

Alice: She like, she didn’t just turn her back and run. She went to her mother, who was dying, I think?

Yeah. Yeah. And like I’ve said, so

Ellen: She had to look after her mum, didn’t she? She said that.

Alice: So I, like, I’m currently the age that my mother was when she had me, [01:22:00] and two weeks after I was born, mum lost her dad, and then two years after she had me she lost her mum, and now that I’m in my thirties I’ve said to mum, I’m just like, I don’t know how the fuck you did it without your parents.

Because like, I’ve literally just moved back home with my parents.

Bex: And I’m not discounting your fur babies, because they are absolutely 100 percent your children.

Alice: Oh, totally different. Yeah, totally different.

Bex: You’re not, yeah, you don’t have kids.

Alice: I can leave them at home and go, yeah, like I, that’s it. Like, I don’t know how she did it.

You don’t know how to do it and you don’t have kids. Yeah. Like I don’t know how she did it with. two young kids and no parents. And like, I only really hit me when I got into my thirties because until then you’re like, Oh yeah, your thirties are so grown up. And I’m like, no, it’s not. I still want my mum.

Ellen: Yeah. But I mean, the thing with, that’s amazing [01:23:00] about people, like people in general, not just women or mothers is that you just do what you got to do, right? Like you just deal with stuff until you can’t anymore, which is, I guess, what happened to her. Um, you know, she tried and tried and did what she had to do because Eddie wasn’t there and she didn’t have the support.

And then eventually it got too much and, like, I don’t, I don’t know what the timeline, like, Eddie came back and then she left? Like, what was the

Alice: We get more of it later, so you’ll

Ellen: Okay, okay.

Yeah, you are missing little bits of the story.

Alice: You’re missing a big chunk of the story, really. .

Ellen: Yeah. Okay. I wasn’t sure if it was just something that we heard about a lot earlier and I just forgotten about it or what?

Alice: No, no. Like there’s okay. Like none, none of this is like fan like we get another episode. Um, okay.

Bex: Yeah. You still, you I don’t think this is gonna be considering we’ve had Hen Begins and Chim Begins, we are gonna get an Eddie Begins. Yeah. I don’t think that’s a spoiler to say that. I think that’s um, [01:24:00] prices of elimination that we would get that.

So yeah, there is gonna be an Eddie begins and we get a lot and we get a little bit more.

Alice: Yeah, and like, honestly, after seeing Eddie Begins and then re watching this, like, I, as I said, I sobbed from the restaurant onwards.

Ellen: Yeah, it’s difficult.

Alice: Justice for Shannon.

Bex: The more that, yeah, the more that you watch this show and the more you come back to Shannon, you realize how badly she was mistreated by the writers.

Yeah. Because she is like the living embodiment of the failure of the Bechdel test. Yeah. Because there is nothing about Shannon that doesn’t relate to a man.

Ellen: Yeah, I don’t think she ever has a conversation with another woman or

Bex: She, we never see her talk to another woman. Her, she, her only connections are the only things we know about her.

Alice: I mean, she sort of waved to Eddie’s grandmother. They went out for ice cream with Chris.

Bex: But there was Christopher there as well.

Alice: That’s what I mean, and called Eddie.

Bex: So like, she only, she only has, Her only connections, the only thing we know about her are her connections [01:25:00] and her relationship to Eddie and her connections and relationship with Christopher.

What does she do for a job? Where does she live? We don’t know anything about this.

Ellen: She’s a very paper doll character, isn’t she? We don’t know anything about her.

Alice: I really like, um, the Like I’ve seen her in fan fiction pair, uh, paired up with Taylor a lot and I love it. Cause like, yes, that’s what she deserves.

If there’s someone feisty to me, like, no, fuck all of you. This is my, this is my woman.

Ellen: I like that. That’s a great pairing.

I hope Taylor comes back. Is she going to come back at some point? Cause I’m,

Alice: oh yeah.

Ellen: Excellent.

Alice: You haven’t seen the last of Taylor.

Ellen: Yeah, so. I don’t know what Shannon was sort of aiming at with the, like, wanting to get a divorce and then somehow still later wanting to come back and be part of Christopher’s life.

Like, [01:26:00]

Alice: Yeah. So she didn’t want to leave Christopher. She just wanted to leave Eddie basically.

Bex: No, but she didn’t want, you can divorce, like, when you get divorced as a parent, you are unfortunately still stuck with them. You can’t leave them because you have a child and you’re still connected to them. She was just trying, I think, to stop Eddie from trying with her.

Because she had seen that, you know, he considered her the mother of his child. Yeah. Not his wife, not his partner, not the woman that he loved. She was just Christopher’s mother.

Alice: Not the person who had his back. Just his son’s mother,

Bex: so she, she just wanted to sever the romantic and sexual connection between them so they could be co-parents.

She could still be in Christopher’s life, but she wasn’t tied to this man who didn’t really want her, who just felt obligated to have her because they made a decision, stupid decision when they were [01:27:00] teenagers.

Ellen: Okay. That makes more sense.

Bex: I think that if they had,

Ellen: she was trying to claw back some self-determination.

Bex: Yeah, I think that if they had got divorced, they probably would have been really good co parents and they would have been, they would have gone back to being friends. Yeah. Because they were friends before they were, they were, they were friends before Chris came along. And I think they could have gone back to that and that probably would have been a good relationship or she would have left and we would have got like mentions.

Oh, where’s Chris this weekend? Oh, he’s off in blah blah blah with his mother. No, any time Gavin couldn’t be on set, he’s off with wherever Shannon is, um, spending time with her.

Alice: Yeah, he’s at Shannon and Taylor’s this weekend. Yeah.

Bex: So, I mean, there could have been ways around either keeping Shannon, um, In the show, but not having her tied to [01:28:00] Eddie or getting rid of her completely and just having her be a We’re gonna mention her every now and then so that the audience knows that she still exists and that she is a place that Chris can go They did not have to go the route that they went.

No.

Ellen: Oh, but she only exists for man pain

Alice: Apparently. Literally, yeah, like she’s there as an incubator, and then for Eddie’s tears, that’s it.

Ellen: I mean, we were happy for them to take lessons from Supernatural, but they didn’t have to go this far.

Bex: But I think it’s, it’s worse than Supernatural. Because I mean, if we’re gonna, if we’re gonna go there, it’s not even, I don’t think you can even consider this to be fridging.

Because with fridging, you The woman dies to motivate the man. It’s their death is a plot device to further the man’s [01:29:00] story. I don’t see that that happens with Eddie.

Ellen: I haven’t seen enough of the, of the following episodes to know, but that’s how it feels to me at the moment.

Bex: It feels like she should die in order to further his story.

Um, but it doesn’t.

Ellen: Oh, that’s a shame. I mean, the whole thing is a shame, but. To make it not even worth that much is a bit sad.

Bex: To not even make it mean anything.

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: Yeah, it’s just another like, plot in his wiki page where it’s just like, yeah, single father, like, special needs child, widow.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: And it wasn’t even that, um, the actress didn’t want to come back.

She was just as shocked as everybody else. that this was what she was given for this script. Apparently the entire cast was shocked. [01:30:00]

Ellen: Yeah. Well, that’s very sudden. I mean, I didn’t really, I, I knew that it had happened, like she was going to die at some point, but I didn’t realize it happened at this point.

Alice: Yeah, like I’d seen a spoiler that she was, yeah, like I’d seen a spoiler just before watching this episode. Um, on Twitter, like someone mentioned somewhere that like, Shannon had died. And I was just like, oh, and like, I thought it would be like a season four type thing. I did not expect it this soon.

Bex: I think that would make more sense.

Yeah, I think that would make more sense if they had allowed Shannon to stick around for a little bit longer rather than try and do an entire relationship arc within one season.

Perhaps if they had allowed Shannon to stick around for a little bit longer, we might’ve got to know her a little bit more.

And we might have actually been sad that it was Shannon that died and not just sad because Eddie was sad. [01:31:00]

Alice: Yeah, like I was sad that Eddie was sad. Yeah, exactly. Until I watched Eddie Begins and now my heart hurts for Shannon.

Ellen: I mean it was, we’ve only seen her for what, like four, like not even like three episodes or something?

She hasn’t been in many. And exactly. She hasn’t said more A couple of words in some of those.

Alice: Yeah. I think this episode’s, like, she’s in this episode most.

Bex: Who was, who was the guy that got, um, cut in half by the motorbike?

Alice: Oh, David Wallace.

Bex: David Wallace had, they invested more time in setting up David Wallace’s story and making us love David Wallace than they did with Shannon.

Alice: Than poor Shannon.

Bex: And David Wallace had what, five minutes? Shannon’s had an entire season. And I think David Wallace had more of an impact with his death than Shannon did.

Ellen: Oh dear.

Alice: Justice for Shannon.

Bex: Honestly, justice for all the [01:32:00] women in the show, but especially Shannon. Especially Shannon.

Ellen: All right, well, I guess we Oh, we’ve got one more scene. One more scene before the sad part.

Bex: Oh, yes. Let’s watch, um, let’s watch Josh break some, um, confidentiality and some privacy laws.

Alice: Oh my god, literally. What the fuck?

Bex: Apparently Abby wasn’t the only one who used to delve into the records to get people’s personal information.

Alice: Yeah, I’m starting to see where she got it from.

Ellen: Maybe Josh learned it from her. So he’s going to have coffee with, uh, with Maddie. And, well, Josh invites her for coffee, and she’s like, “I’m always down for coffee, but what’s really going on?” Like, what, why were you suspecting something, Maddie? Like, you just don’t, Josh doesn’t normally ask you out for coffee?

Bex: Clearly Josh doesn’t normally ask her out for coffee.

Either that or it was like, I need you to be at this coffee shop at this time.

Ellen: Yeah, it’s like a surprise [01:33:00] party.

Alice: Yeah, to be fair, Josh doesn’t, Josh doesn’t seem like a subtle person either, so.

Bex: Oh, God, no.

Alice: But yeah, so Maddie, Maddie, like, immediately thinks, like, he’s going to try and convince me not to leave.

Bex: And Which is exactly what he says. I do love He says

Alice: I love Josh so much because, yeah, he’s just like, “Remember your first call?” And Maddie goes, “Yeah, anaphylactic shock, seafood allergy.” And Josh is like, “Remember the first lesson I taught you on that call?” And Maddie’s like, “Yeah, you taught me to listen.” And he’s like, “Yeah, okay, terrific. So do that now.”

Like, wow, okay. Like, thought that that was gonna have like some nope, just shut the fuck up and listen.

Bex: Yeah. Yep. And what she’s listening to is that Josh and Sue dived into the 9-1-1 records, managed to find the personal information of a variety of people who Maddie took 9-1-1 calls from, called them and gathered them in this coffee shop, invited them to this coffee shop to stage an intervention for [01:34:00] Maddie.

Ellen: Yeah. And then they all, there’s heaps of them there, in the end. One by one they all come forward and tell her how much she,

Alice: yeah. It’s basically Maddie’s greatest hits, plus some extras.

Ellen: Yeah. , they tell her how, how she saved their life and, and she knows all their names, like even though she’s never seen them before and she just recognizes their voices.

Alice: Like, I work in a store where customers have accounts, so their name comes up on the account and I read their names. I still don’t fucking know the regular’s names.

Ellen: No. I don’t remember anyone’s name ever.

Alice: I know the dog’s names, I don’t know the people’s names.

Bex: And I’m very impressed that she’s able to recognize everyone just by the sound of their voice.

Alice: Yeah.

Bex: So yeah, we get the, it’s Maddie’s Greatest Hits. We get, we start off with Nicole, which was the woman from the movie. earlier in the episode, um, then we get the husband and wife from the earthquake. Oh, hang on.

Alice: Sam’s okay, by the way. [01:35:00] Um, the police got there in time.

Bex: I don’t give a fuck about Sam. I didn’t give a fuck about him the first time.

Alice: What’re you talking about? We need to know about Sam. Um,

Ellen: Maddie needs closure.

Alice: Maddie needs closure, Bex!

Bex: Okay. Maddie needs closure. I don’t care. Um, so we have Nicole, we then have the husband and wife from the earthquake who, uh, she very bluntly told the husband that health was not coming before somehow summoning a magical cell phone that got signal through to

Ellen: Oh, yeah.

Bex: Yeah. A fire, yeah. And she got them help. Uh, so we have them and they

Alice: The baby’s also there.

Bex: The baby’s also there, and I was side eyeing it, going, shouldn’t that baby be bigger by now, considering that was, what, six, seven months?

Ellen: Yeah, that was a while ago.

Bex: Since the earthquake. Yeah. So once again, 9-1-1 has no idea about the relative size of babies.

Alice: They used the same baby that was given birth to. And they’re just like, oh yeah, everyone says it looks like a two year old, so we’re just gonna [01:36:00]

Bex: Uh, we get, um, Brandon from the Christmas episode.

Alice: Oh yeah, the guy that was, um, posted.

Bex: We get Norman and, um, Lola, and I call bullshit on this one because I would say that Buck had more of an impact on those two than Maddie did.

Alice: And isn’t Lola supposed to be in jail?

Bex: Maybe she didn’t get that long.

Alice: And um, speaking of people that are supposed to be in jail.

Bex: And then we get fucking Gloria.

Ellen: Gloria. Oh yeah, and Maddie does say, aren’t you supposed to be

Bex: I love that Gloria’s introduction was Norman and Laura, um, Norman and Lola are talking to Maddie about how, um, how she helped them and Gloria just looks at them and goes, I would have hung up on you.

Just in case we forgot who Gloria was.

Alice: To be fair, I totally forgot that that was season two, even though it’s [01:37:00] with Maddie and she’s only in season two.

Ellen: Yeah, I was surprised actually. I was like, was that season two? That seems like such a long time ago. But I mean, it was a long time

ago.

Alice: Like, that was before Chim bled out for six weeks.

Ellen: That’s right.

Bex: So Gloria has apparently had a, um, a change of heart. The time behind bars has done her good. And she is, um, realized the error of her ways.

Ellen: Maddie fixed her too, apparently.

Bex: Apparently, and Maddie is oh this bit frustrates me because Maddie is still looking to Gloria like she has all the answers.

Because Maddie asks Gloria whether being on the call with someone, being just listening to them so they’re not alone, is that enough? She’s Does she doesn’t feel like she’s making a difference just by being on the call with them and Gloria said “Well you don’t realize how much of a difference you’re making until you are actually on the other end of the phone having an emergency And having that person on the other end of the phone listen just being with you [01:38:00] in the middle of it in the middle of an emergency is the scariest part and you don’t just need help you need hope,” and that’s what Maddie is She is hope At this point, everybody in the coffee shop stands up.

Alice: I don’t know, like, I was literally thinking, like, the poor people that are just in this coffee shop to try and have coffee. But no, apparently all of them have been saved by Maddie, so it’s fine.

Bex: Josh booked the entire coffee shop.

Ellen: It is, it is, it’s super sweet in a kind of on the nose kind of way, like, over the top kind of sappy.

But Maddie is in tears. She’s really grateful. And, you know, she thanks Josh with a big hug and she’s not going to leave after all, and still not really sure why this is in this episode, but

Alice: Look, it still gives me goosebumps every time.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of nice.

Alice: It’s awful. And it’s such a breach of privacy, but

Bex: Oh my God.

Alice: But [01:39:00] every time Maddie cries, I cry. So

Bex: But don’t you think it would have, can you imagine, like, it has this emotional impact and she’s only been contemplating leaving for maybe five minutes.

Could you imagine if we had like three weeks of her not at dispatch? And then, finally, in desperation, Josh pulls this Hail Mary to try and get her to come back and she realizes that she is actually making a difference.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, but they only had 18 episodes and not 23, so I guess I had to compress it.

Bex: Are we going to say goodbye to you now, Alice?

Alice: Yeah, I am out.

Bex: Is there anything else you want to say about this episode?

Alice: I think I’ve covered it all. Like, the pacing’s strange. This next part definitely comes out of nowhere.

And justice for Shannon. Yes. Yep. I’m still mad about it and I watched it like two [01:40:00] days ago.

Ellen: Okay.

Alice: Um, goodnight.

Ellen: Thank you. Goodnight.

Alice: See everyone next week. Bye.

Ellen: Bye.

Bex: Okay. Alright, it’s just you and me then.

Ellen: Yeah. Let’s do it. Okay, so.

Bex: We get a 9-1-1 call and of course it’s not Josh or Maddie because they’re in a coffee shop.

Ellen: Mm hmm. You mean people, other people work there? I thought Josh never left.

Bex: Maybe Sue’s manning the phones. They’ve dragged Terry up from the IT department.

Ellen: Yes. It’s, we don’t, like the 9-1-1 calls that we get where it’s not Maddie or Josh, are always just people that we don’t recognize, right? There’s never anyone else that we actually recognize the voice of.

Bex: Not yet.

Ellen: Not, not in, not in season two anyway.

Bex: No. Which, I mean, why don’t we get Linda answering calls?

Ellen: Yeah, she’s around. She’s one of them.

Bex: We know her. She should be answering some calls. But no. We’re just getting random [01:41:00] dispatchers.

Ellen: Mm hmm.

Bex: Um, so we get a 9-1-1 call to a random dispatcher, um, that a car drove through a crowd of people at a crosswalk.

And Rose Avenue is the location of the, um, the incident, which must be close enough, or not, because it doesn’t even matter where the location is, um, for the 118 to be dispatched. Yes. Chim seems to have put his captain’s hat on properly this time.

Ellen: Yeah, he’s giving the orders.

Bex: He is. And we have John back with the 118.

Ellen: You know, uh, after I’ve watched this one time and I still do not remember John at all, it’s only because you’ve mentioned John that I’m like, Oh, there was someone else?

Bex: I am so hyper focused on people who aren’t Buck, Eddie, Chim, Hen, and Bobby that I notice immediately if somebody else is in the scene.

Ellen: I mean, it would make sense they needed someone to take up, you know, make out the team since Bobby’s not there, but, [01:42:00] um, yeah, I don’t know.

Totally blanked on John, sorry John.

Bex: Well, to be fair, John never actually says a word, so he doesn’t get his SAG card in this episode. He gets his face on screen momentarily. He just gets it. Talked at a lot.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: Um, so he is triaging the minor injuries, um, Hen and Chim are off attending to a major injury and Buck and Eddie are checking on the driver who caused the accident.

Ellen: Yeah, and she’s like, a little bit out of it. She looks like she’s hit her head or something. She, you know, she didn’t see any, any of them. Are they okay? And, um, her neck hurts so they’re gonna try and fix her up. And the lady mentions that there was, she hit a lady and is she okay? And they turn around and Buck just looks at Eddie and goes, oh no.[01:43:00]

Bex: Yeah, so Eddie’s putting the c collar on the driver and Buck is out of the car at this point and he looks to find “the lady” so that he can report back to the driver, you know, she’s fine. They’re taking care of her and his whole body just changes and

Ellen: yeah, he recognizes what’s happening,

Bex: Eddie being so attuned to Buck immediately realizes that something has gone wrong.

Mm-Hmm. . And he asks Buck what’s happening, and Buck just can’t say anything. He just looks at Eddie and Eddie just realizes that something serious has happened and just immediately. starts heading down the street in the direction that Buck was looking. And Buck is trying to stop him, trying to grab him.

Um, Eddie flings him off. It’s Chim that finally stops him.

Ellen: Yeah. And I, like, Chim tells her, tells him that, you know, let me handle [01:44:00] this. Eddie’s like, how bad is it? And I’m like, what the hell’s going on here? And it’s not until they get it, they pull up to like a overhead shot that I realized that it was Shannon. And I’m just like, Oh no, Oh no. Like Alice was saying before how this just comes out of nowhere.

Bex: Completely out of nowhere.

Ellen: And. I wasn’t expecting it to happen here, but like, I mean, in, in a way, like, this is how accidents are in the real world. I guess you’d never know when you’re going to be hit by a car.

Like, you know, it’s out of the blue always, but, um, but, oh, I mean, it’s true that they have been kind of foreshadowing, like something can happen the whole episode, but still. Was not expecting it like this.

Bex: But to go from, okay, pregnancy scare to, okay, not pregnant to, oh no, we’re getting a divorce to, oh no, we’re just gonna kill off your wife.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: It’s a very dramatic,

Ellen: It’s a big escalation,

Bex: unexpected turn. Yeah. It’s a [01:45:00] massive escalation that I don’t think anybody saw coming. I don’t think anybody could have watched, um, I don’t think anybody did. Did. I do not remember watching this episode and going, oh, they’re gonna kill her at the end. Yeah, that’s where this is going.

Ellen: Yeah, and I mean it, too, television, I guess it’s under no obligation to signal to you that something like this is going to happen, but they usually do. It’s like how storytelling kind of works often in this kind of thing.

Bex: Especially for a TV show that does rely on tropes and, um, and kind of conventions, um, that you can tell what is going to happen in an episode before it happens if you are media savvy enough.

Ellen: Yeah, and I mean, when they do stuff like this out of the blue, it’s, it’s quite jarring and you realise just how often that stuff like this is signalled before it actually happens.

Bex: Yeah.

Ellen: Anyway, she’s not doing that [01:46:00] well, um, and Eddie finally gets to her side and he says, “I’m here.” And then she goes, “Oh God, this is so embarrassing.”

And I was like, oh gosh. They, they get her on a board and into the ambulance and Eddie, they try to stop Eddie from going in there. Um, because like, she’s going downhill and she’s like, Chim says to him, Eddie, if we put the tube in, there’s a good chance it’ll never come back out. It’s just like

Bex: And that line, honestly, as soon as Chim said that, I think that line got kind of lodged in the brains of everyone in the fandom.

And now any time we see a character get intubated, I know that me, anytime I see a character get intubated, I’m just going, okay, cool, they’re dead.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: Because Chim’s already said, as soon as they get intubated. The intubation tube is never [01:47:00] coming back out. It’s like, it’s automatically a death wish.

Ellen: I mean, I already had that association a little bit since like COVID when they were saying that in the hospitals, if people ended up getting intubated, they were unlikely to recover, which is just awful.

Bex: Yeah, but this was pre COVID.

Ellen: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But like, yeah, watching it now. I mean, Eddie just looks like, you know, he’s devastated, obviously. But so Chim says like, “Don’t put the tube in yet, Eddie, get in there and say goodbye to her.” So they head off in the ambulance.

Bex: So they’re driving to the hospital and Eddie and Shannon are saying their goodbyes as Chim and Hen basically just waiting for that moment to, to jump in when things go south.

And Shannon is [01:48:00] She’s just, she’s, she’s mumbling. Uh, no, she’s not mumbling. She’s, um, Oh, what is the word?

Ellen: She’s rambling.

Bex: Yes. That’s the word I’m looking for. She’s just rambling sort of nonsensically. She’s, um, she’s telling Eddie, uh, you know, “I can’t feel anything. That, that, that’s, that’s not a good sign, right? And I’m, I’m leaving again. I’m, I’m so sorry. I wish I had more time.” And Eddie just tells her to be silent.

Ellen: I mean, he’s had the training. He must know what’s happening. He knows that there’s not much hope, you know?

Bex: Yes. I think he’s fully aware of what’s happening and he’s just, he’s struggling to comprehend that it’s happening to Shannon and all of the complicated feelings that he has about Shannon.

Ellen: Yeah, he just tells her that he loves her and Christopher loves her. Then the heart rate monitor [01:49:00] beeps and Chim and Hen dive in

Bex: and intubate Shannon start doing compressions, put the the little squeezy bottle to start administering oxygen. But by the time we get back from the commercial break, um, they’ve arrived at the hospital and Shannon is, is has gone.

It’s a, uh, it’s a really interesting way that they, they do this scene. There’s just, there’s almost no. sound from the actors or from anything that they’re doing. I think it’s just music, but as they wheel Shannon out of the ambulance and into the hospital, the heart rate monitor that they’ve put on Shannon is sitting sort of on the gurney near her legs and it crosses the camera frame and we can just see that the screen has a flat line on it.

So we can’t hear the beep. Or we can’t hear the [01:50:00] beep that would tell us that she’s flatlined, that she has no heartbeat, but we can see the visual, the visual cue that they’ve lost her. And the rest of this scene is just, it’s all slow motion.

Ellen: I was watching it thinking that Eddie’s grief is so much that his Slow motion effects have just affected the whole world for a little while.

Like everything is in slow motion for him. Except now it’s not just him struggling to put on a t shirt. No, it’s everyone struggling to do everything. And he’s like, later, he gets her clothing and her belongings from the hospital staff. And, you know, walks out into the waiting room where the rest of the 118 are waiting there.

And even Bobby’s there. And Eddie just walks up to Bobby and gives him a hug. It’s like, oh, Dad.

And then he’s like sitting on the beach and sobbing [01:51:00] and we’re all sobbing and

Bex: Then at some point, um, we start getting a voiceover of Shannon. Narrating the letter that she had written for Christopher, and I guess Eddie has found it. Somewhere either Shannon had it on her or he found it at the house. Um, and he is reading it on the beach and we’re hearing her and it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a beautiful letter to Chris.

Ellen: Um, perhaps, thankfully, we never see Chris’s reaction to any of this. I don’t know whether they

Bex: We kind of, we kind of do, but it’s, it’s so quick. Um, we see Eddie go to his abuela’s house to pick up Christopher. And the implication, Eddie, um, Chris is sitting on the porch and Eddie gets down on his level and we just see Chris’s face fall.[01:52:00]

And then he scoops Chris up in a hug and I guess the implication is that he’s just broken the news to Chris. But that’s as much of a reaction as we get. I guess it’s always difficult when you’ve got child actors. How much trauma do you really want to put them through?

Ellen: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. Yeah, don’t really you don’t want to make him cry if you don’t have to

Bex: no Makes me think of that story of, I think it was Shirley Temple told, that if they wanted her to cry on screen they used to tell her that her dog had died.

Ellen: Oh, god.

Bex: Just before they started rolling the scenes, so she’d be crying over her dog.

Ellen: Oh, that was back when they didn’t care about like torturing people on a regular basis. That’s just mean.

Bex: They’re much more careful with their child actors now.

Ellen: Thank goodness. So yeah, it’s, it’s so, like, not only do we know that, like, you know, Chris and Eddie won’t have [01:53:00] Shannon now, but it’s also, you think of, like, people who write letters when they’ve got cancer or whatever, and they’re thinking that they’re not going to be around for their kid’s wedding or whatever, so they write a letter to explain how much they love them and everything, and it’s just, oh, that makes me cry every time I think about it.

It’s like, this beautiful letter, Um, at least Chris will have that at some point.

Bex: I mean the irony was that Shannon wrote this thinking that she wasn’t going to be with Chris because she was just going to be on the other side of the country.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: And so she’s saying, like, the letter ends with her saying that she loves him even if it’s from a distance.

Yeah. And now suddenly it’s not just a physical distance, it’s a, like, a metaphysical distance.

Ellen: Yeah. Alright. We’ve done the sad part. Thank you.

Bex: We’ve done the sad part, but we’re not allowed to linger on the sad part though either.

Ellen: No, and this

Bex: It’s like we’re gonna kill Shannon, we’re gonna see Eddie be sad, and then we have to [01:54:00] Jump into the rest of the story because there’s still more to go.

Ellen: Yeah, I feel like maybe they could have ended the episode with the sads and then they would have slightly more impact.

Bex: I think it would have had more emotional resonance.

Ellen: Yeah,

Bex: but then again Shannon didn’t really have, they never allowed her to have that much of an emotional resonance. So Doesn’t matter where you end the episode the audience is still not gonna care for her as much as No.

Ellen: Well, we’ve got a couple more scenes to go. We’ve got, we’ve got Chim being sad now. Um, he’s drinking on the couch.

Bex: Day drinking.

Ellen: He’s day drinking. He’s got a whole six pack in front of him. Um, well, he’s only just started, I guess. Um, or, unless it’s his second six pack, which is possible.

Bex: His second six pack?

Ellen: Um. Someone is banging on the door, like, they’re just not stopping. [01:55:00]

Bex: It’s not a couple of knocks, it’s I’m going to keep banging until you get so sick of me that you have to come open the door to stop me. And I can only think of one person who would be that obnoxious. And it is indeed Hen. I love that Chim opens the door so she stops knocking, takes one look at her and then just walks away.

Ellen: Yes, uh, she just wanted to see if he was okay. Okay. And he’s like, “I’m fine. I’m not the one with the dead wife or any wife, which is probably good. Cause I was pretty cool with letting Eddie’s just die.” It’s like, that’s not what happened to come up.

Bex: And hen calls him on that. She’s like, “To put it quite bluntly, Shannon was already dead. Her brain just didn’t realize it yet.”

Ellen: Yeah. It’s awful that Chim thinks that he was responsible for this, but, um, but of course he does because he is most likely having flashbacks to Kevin and other [01:56:00] people he’s lost.

Bex: Oh my God. I didn’t even think about Kevin.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Poor Chim is going through it as well.

So.

Bex: So not only has he lost someone, but he lost someone under his command. So it’s even worse.

Ellen: Yeah. But then they have like a, a bit of a, Hen kind of props him up by saying that she knows that she’s given him some grief over being the captain. And. Chim goes, “I have been a little on the insufferable side,” and she goes, “You’ve been a nightmare.”

I’m like, Jesus, Hen, I thought you were trying to make him feel better about things. No.

Bex: Tough love.

Ellen: He wants, she wanted to see him succeed, but, and then Chim’s like, “You didn’t think I could do it.”

Bex: And then she says, “No, I knew you could do it. But my fear was once you realized that you could do it, you would never [01:57:00] want to come back to just being a paramedic with me.”

That’s, this is the same person who, Chim comes up with a brilliant save in the chocolate factory and she immediately goes, “You called Bobby.” So she didn’t think that he could do it.

Ellen: Yeah, that’s right. She’s got a funny way of showing that she thinks he could actually do it, because it’s quite clear earlier in the

Bex: episode.

Once again Henrietta Wilson is the menace of the 118.

Ellen: She says one thing, but she does exactly the opposite thing. But he does, Chim says that he misses her and he misses being in the ambulance, but

Bex: Misses having no responsibility.

Ellen: Yeah. Oh, it’s so hard being the captain. But anyway, that’s it. Hen says it, you’re still my best friend.

So, they have a beer together.

Bex: I do like that, I do like their friendship. They are very cute together.

Ellen: Chaos twins, for sure. [01:58:00] And then we’ve got, Bobby and Athena are going to look at a wedding venue. They’re at a very nice hotel, but they decide that it’s not really appropriate or, you know, they’re not, their heart’s not in it today to look at wedding venues when Eddie’s planning a funeral.

Bex: So Athena calls off checking out the hotel, um, and to make Bobby feel a little bit better about it she says they’re probably not hotel ballroom kind of couple anyway. So Bobby asks, “What kind of couple are we? Are we a backyard barbecue kind of couple? Are we a destination wedding kind of couple?”

Um, but Athena doesn’t answer because she’s distracted by the news report playing on the television about a package bomb that’s exploded.

Ellen: And it’s not the place that they were at earlier that day or the previous day. No, it’s

Bex: not the bomb that, um, [01:59:00] that Athena was investigating.

It’s a different one. So even though Bobby is not captain of the 118 anymore, his automatic, um, diagnostic skills have turned inwards to automatic detective skills. Because Athena says, uh, two male bombs in one week, that’s not a coincidence. And Bobby goes, that’s a serial bomber. Just getting started.

Ellen: By their powers combined, they’re solving crime.

Again. Again.

Bex: Ah, here we go. So, like, the summary was talking about, like, the promo summary, was Athena investigating a mail bomb.

Ellen: Yeah, but this is the extent of the investigation, right? Yeah, she doesn’t, they, she just shows up on the scene of the first one. She doesn’t investigate anything.

Bex: No, and then [02:00:00] she and her soon to be husband just decide that it’s going to be something that they’re gonna investigate in the last few seconds of the episode.

Ellen: Yeah, that’s weird.

Bex: So like this, this entire episode feels like a filler episode to me.

Ellen: Yeah, maybe, um, And they, they’ve like, collected all the bits of story that they needed to have in season two to wrap things up. Like, uh, Maddie having her crisis over leaving the call centre, and like, Shannon.

Bex: It’s, like, it’s story threads that the writers decided that they needed to tie off, but they weren’t story threads that naturally seemed to be there.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah.

Bex: Like, I don’t, from having watched season two up to this point, I don’t feel that there was a Maddie thread dangling that needed to be dealt with.

Ellen: No, we could have dealt with it. Like you say, we could have explored it more, like, in season three, maybe, if they had room for it, [02:01:00] but it didn’t have to be shoehorned into this episode.

Bex: They could have started a little bit earlier, like right after she came back, um, from Big Bear. Instead of going, instead of having that episode where she gets back to 9-1-1 and everything goes to shit, and she realizes that she is an awesome dispatcher, um, who remembers how many San Vicentes there are in Los Angeles.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: We could have started the, the crisis of confidence from there. Um, and Shannon was definitely not a thread that needed to be tied off like this.

Ellen: No. Justice for Shannon, totally.

Bex: Absolutely justice for Shannon. It just, it also feels like the previous couple of episodes have all dovetailed into each other nicely.

Ellen: Yes.

Bex: So you started with Broken where we got the introduction of Marty [02:02:00] um, which then led into, so “Broken”, we got the broken truck which introduced Marty who was the protagonist that came back in “Oceans 9-1-1”.

Ellen: Yep.

Bex: Um, and then which then kicked Bobby out. Which we then got “Bobby Begins”, sort of a story, we got the introduction of, um, what happened when Bobby was first in Los Angeles, and his and Athena’s first foray as detectives together.

Ellen: Yeah, yeah, that’s right.

Bex: So they, all of these episodes flow in nicely, and then all of a sudden it just comes to a bit of a screeching halt in this episode.

Ellen: Yeah, and they just tack on the end a bit of a cliffhanger with this bomb thing.

Bex: Yes, which then will flow into the next episode. It’s a little clumsy.

This episode feels like The Half Blood Prince to me.

It’s The Half Blood Prince. It’s such a filler book in the series that you can, [02:03:00] like, very easily just not have it in the series. Just go straight through and keep going through the Deathly Hallows.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, I see that. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean there was nothing, nothing happened in this episode that we really needed to know.

Like, even, even, like, okay, Shannon’s death was extremely tragic and we probably, we would have preferred it didn’t happen. But at the same time, is it, like you said, it’s not that important to Eddie’s story in general, like it doesn’t further his motivation or like

Bex: I mean, you, like you compared it to Supernatural and the first thing I thought of was Charlie in the bathtub.

Ellen: Oh my god, that still makes me so mad.

Bex: Which was a literal example of fridging because it was Dean’s motivation to then, you know, continue his reign of terror.

Ellen: Yeah, [02:04:00] but we cared, we cared a lot, like, we had a lot more Charlie.

Bex: But we also cared about Charlie.

Ellen: We loved Charlie because she was a fully fleshed out character that we’d seen several times before in whole episodes, not just now and then.

Bex: And she had, she was a character who had a storyline that was not connected to Dean or Sam or any of the other characters. She was her own person. Um, whereas I do not feel

Ellen: Yeah, Shannon’s very two dimensional.

Bex: She’s very two dimensional and I don’t Like, I could understand if there was a storyline that coming up where Eddie sought revenge for, um, the person who killed Shannon, or he went and did this because of what happened to Shannon, but that’s not what happens.

Whatever storyline they had in play for Eddie, they decided we don’t need a wife lingering on the sidelines.

Ellen: Yeah. We don’t need Shannon anymore. What should we [02:05:00] do with her?

Bex: She’s just, she’s a problem because we can’t. It’s like we can’t have our sexy leading man having romantic storylines and if we have him have a wife somewhere, even an ex wife somewhere because there’s always going to be the, Oh, will they, won’t they get back together even if they got divorced possibility out there.

So we just need to get rid of her once and for all, so that we can have him completely unencumbered to, you know, hook up and have sexy times with all of our, um, all of the beautiful women that they’re going to bring onto the cast to have beautiful sexy times with Eddie Diaz, except they kind of forgot that this is Eddie Diaz menace to woman, womankind, um, who only has eyes for his best friend.

Ellen: So, so what, are you saying that he’s got like the Sam Winchester curse where like his penis causes death like?

Bex: Oh, I am not, I am not going to say that.

Ellen: Okay, don’t spoil me. [02:06:00]

Bex: Oh no, poor Eddie! Poor Sam!

Ellen: Poor Sam. So cursed.

Bex: Not, no. It’s so hard, I want to talk to you so much about this, but I can’t say anything because I’m just going to spoil everything.

Ellen: All right, you can tell me another time. Later.

Bex: We will, we will put a pin in this conversation and we will come back in like, what, nine months? Do you reckon we can get through four more seasons in nine months?

Ellen: Oh my god.

We’re going to have to start watching multiple episodes a week if we’re going to do that.

Bex: Yeah, I don’t think that’s possible, but oh my god.

Ellen: You and Alice can scream about it in the, uh, spoiler channel later. [02:07:00]

Bex: I mean, I’ve already screamed about it with, um, Lucia and Nell on their, the Totally Normal About That podcast.

But yes. I am perfectly willing and able to scream at length about Eddie Diaz to anybody who will listen.

Ellen: Well, I’m not sure I’m looking forward to finding out more about this, but I will be excited to find out more about this.

Alright, well, anything else you want to say about this episode?

I just don’t know what they, like, we did, we said we were going to come back to theme. I don’t really know what they were aiming for in this because like people got what they wished for, but then it turned out to be the worst thing ever. And, but, but it, what it didn’t have, that didn’t happen across the board.

Like some people didn’t get what they wanted. And I don’t know.

Bex: I think that we are both like [02:08:00] media savvy and intelligent enough that we could dig down and we could. Find some kind of thematic link for all of the storylines to the theme of wishing and being careful what you wish for and wishes being horrible.

But I don’t think that we should have to. I think that if they’re going to do a thematic episode, it needs to be a little bit more, maybe not as blatantly obvious as like the Karma’s a Bitch and the Awful People of episodes of 9-1-1, but it needs to be If you’re going to do a thematic episode, you need to at least give your audience a fighting chance to recognize and find the themes and find the connections.

Uh, cause I’m struggling with this one.

Ellen: Yeah. It’s kind of like we, we could probably dig around and find something, but did the writers actually think about that at all when they were writing?

Bex: Exactly. We may be ascribing intention and motives to them that they did not have when they were writing. [02:09:00] It’s just, this one’s a mess.

This one is not one that I enjoy watching.

Ellen: No, I mean, yeah, like I said before, there is definitely definite sections to it. Like I, I love the section with Bobby giving advice to everybody. I thought that was really quite funny.

Bex: I really do. I mean, I was joking about it being a feeling like one person wrote one part and folded over the piece of paper and handed it around.

But I really wonder if this was a joint effort in the writer’s room.

Ellen: Yeah, well, it’s tonally quite different. Like,

Bex: there are all of these little sections that each of these, the different writers in the writer’s room had come up with. And. I think the writer for this episode is Matthew Hodgson. I wonder if he’s just the guy that they said, okay, Matt, put everything together and make it one episode.

Ellen: Yeah, here’s my bit. Uh, you try and make it all make sense.

Bex: Yeah, put all of these together into one episode and you’ve just gone, Oh, fuck, okay. Um, [02:10:00] I think like I, if you said to me, the lottery scene was written by Kristen, and then this scene over here was written by someone else, and that scene over there was written by someone else, I would believe you.

Ellen: Yeah, well, I totally, when the lottery scene sort of, you know, And there was the guy who fell out of the sky and like the saying the episode title. I was like, did Kristin write this? Because kind of feels like it.

Bex: But Kristin wrote the first part. I’m going to say, um, Juan Carlos Cotta wrote the, the Bobby family therapy scene.

He seems really good at those, kind of slightly humorous, cutting backwards and forwards between multiple scenes. I, I’m so, I’m just so fascinated by the inside baseball of writers rooms and how episodes get put together. I, I cannot wait for like the oral history of 9-1-1 and how it all got put together.

I want to see the sausage get made of this one. I’m fascinated by that. We still have one [02:11:00] more episode to get through for this season.

Ellen: Yes. What’s, what’s going to happen in the finale? Well, not, you know, what does the summary say for this finale?

Bex: Well, the first responders suspect a serial bomber is on the loose.

Ellen: We knew that.

Bex: Which we kind of knew because Bobby told us that. Um, but the full summary says that the 118 responds to calls from a… Oh, good lord, somebody went crazy with the puns in this one. Okay. Sorry. Uh, the 118 responds to calls from a stunt driver caught in a hairy situation, a teenage social influencer is bugging out, and the city is on high alert after two mail bombs gone up.

Meanwhile, Eddie’s family comes to town and Buck faces a life or death situation.

Ellen: Oh, okay. So I’m expecting lots of like angst, um, like Eddie angst.

Bex: Okay. [02:12:00] Little, little bit of eddy angst, lots of tension, grab your tissues.

Ellen: Okay. More tissues?

Bex: I’ve yet to make, I have met, yet to make it through this episode without crying.

Ellen: Okay.

Bex: Yeah. I mean, that doesn’t say much because I’ll cry at almost anything, especially if the musical cue is correct. Yeah. Um, but this episode, especially every single time I watch it, I cry.

Ellen: Okay. Good to know. I’ll make sure I’ve got the tissues handy.

Bex: So the triggers for next week, we have bad parenting, a car accident, a crush injury, there is going to be an on screen funeral, um, we have gore, specifically a scalping.

Um, we have bugs, so if you are insect averse, probably don’t watch [02:13:00] this, and children at threat due to a unknown serial bomber.

Ellen: Nice. Thanks. Interesting combination, Serial Bomber and like, funeral stuff. Like, heavy sadness and

Bex: But the funeral, I mean, we have just lost a character, so I guess it makes sense that there’s gonna be a funeral.

Ellen: Yeah, but like we, yeah, we just Yeah, I’ll, I’ll hold my thoughts until after I’ve seen the episode, I guess, but it’s just a strange combination of,

Bex: um, yeah, yeah, it’s like, you know, the hairy situation and the, the bugs and, oh yeah, we’re going to have a funeral as well. Yeah.

Ellen: Yes.

All right. Well, um, please do pour out all of your troubles to us in a message or tell us what you thought of Shannon’s story. Send us a DM on our social [02:14:00] media. You can send us an emails, contact at thatweewooshow. com or put comments directly on the episode post or in Spotify.

No, I don’t think you can leave comments in Apple yet. So don’t do that. Um, Spotify also send us your feedback for season two altogether, and we will be very happy to read it all out in our wrap up episode, which is only a couple of weeks away when you’re hearing this. How exciting. We’re nearly there. Uh, we will say a goodbye from Alice and we will see you next time for episode 18, which is called “This Life We Choose”.

See you then.

Bex: Bye!

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’re not alone. You can call or text numbers in your country for [02:15:00] help. Just google Crisis Support in your location to find out.

If you enjoy our podcast, you can help us out by leaving us a review on Spotify or your preferred listening app. And by sharing in our social media posts, find out more at thatweewooshow. com.

[first outtake]

Bex: I feel like, what’s that episo… what is that movie with Jake Gyllenhaal where he

Alice: Brokeback Mountain?

Bex: No, no, not Brokeback Mountain. The one where he, like, creates

Alice: Not the one with the gay fire yeah, sorry, my bad.

Bex: Uh, we can just My brain’s not working, we can cut all this bit out. But there’s like, there is an, there’s a movie with Jake Gyllenhaal where I think he’s a journalist or something, and he goes out and

Alice: Donny Darko.

Bex: Uh, journalist.

Alice: Oh, not a weird kid with an imaginary friend.

Bex: No, but he, he like, does crime [02:16:00] so that he can report on it.

Alice: “All too well”. No, that’s Taylor Swift. No, never mind.

Bex: I feel like Athena is, like, going at it, like, setting mail bombs and doing all of this shit so that she can be first on the scene.

Ellen: Oh, she’s doing it on purpose.

Bex: Yeah, she’s doing it on purpose. You can cut all of that. I was actually gonna Just stay in the episode.

Alice: I was gonna make a joke about, like, oh, you mean Spider Man Far From Home, and then I’m like, wait, that’s kind of what he does in Spider Man Far From Home, though.

Bex: It’s like Night Stalker or something.

Alice: Nightcrawler?

Bex: Yes, Nightcrawler.

Alice: I was googling.

Bex: Yeah, so was I. Although I’ve switched to Duck, Duck, Go and I don’t like it.

[second outtake]

Ellen: Welcome back to That WeeWoo Show, a podcast where we watch and discuss episodes of the ABC show 9-1-1. I’m Ellen.

Alice: I’m Alice.

Bex: And I’m Bex. What the fuck was that?

Ellen: Alice, did you just drop your microphone?

Alice: I was trying to move it and [02:17:00] I expected Bex to say her name and she didn’t. So I was like, um, shit.

Ellen: Would you like to say your name again?

Bex: I always go last.

Alice: I know, but I was moving my microphone. So I was hoping you’d take the hint somehow through telepathy.

Bex: I do not, nope.