Season 2 Wrap

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 break down and discuss the whole of Season 2.

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Our intro music is “Tensions” by Northern Points.

Mentioned in the episode:

• Athena’s wedding dress – thanks for the link, Kiera!

Episode Transcript

Ellen: [00:00:00] Welcome back to That Wee Woo 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: And welcome everyone to our wrap up episode for season two. We’ve made it all the way to the end.

Bex: Finally got to season two.

Alice: Chim’s not bleeding out.

Ellen: I know! That so much has happened.

It feels like a completely different wrap up to the, well, apart from the fact that it is a completely different wrap up, um, we only had 10 season, 10 episodes to talk about in season one. This time we had 18. So. Yeah, a lot more has gone on and, um, we’re going to try and make some sense out of it in this episode.[00:01:00]

Firstly, we, we wanted to, firstly, say thank you to everyone who’s been listening to our season two episodes, and, um, we really appreciate your support. You’ve been sharing some of our posts on social media. You’ve been leaving us some comments. We love it that you’ve done that. Thank you very much.

We wanted to reintroduce ourselves basically, because I have a feeling that if we get some new people coming in, in the future, they may just start with some wrap up episodes, I feel like. So we might just say, say who we are and how we’ve come to watch the show and talk about it, um, for any new listeners that have joined us now.

So who wants to start?

Bex: Maybe I’ll go first, since I think I’ve been the one watching the show the longest out of the three of us. Uh, so, hi, I am Bex. Um, I have been watching this show since the end of season six, when that was live on TV. And I was [00:02:00] a victim of the Supernatural to 9-1-1 pipeline. Um, all of my Supernatural mutuals were watching 9-1-1 and were screaming on social media about this ship that they were sure that was going to go canon.

So I immediately jumped on board, binged all the episodes, caught up live for the season six finale, um, and just have not stopped watching since.

Ellen: Do you want to go next, Alice?

Alice: Yeah, I guess I’ll go next. Um, I’m Alice. I, I’ve only been watching since Season 7, but I was sort of following the show vaguely on social media since Season 4.

Um, cause yeah, same thing, Supernatural 2, um, to 9-1-1 Pipeline. A lot of my mutuals were watching and screaming about a specific moment in Season 4, and I was like, Oh yeah. And I literally knew it as [00:03:00] the gay firefighter show. I had no idea what the show was called. Um, I’d occasionally like check the wiki for it, but I was like, I’m not watching until this ship actually goes canon.

Cause I’ve been there, done that. I’m not doing this again. Then season seven, obviously there was a moment that made everyone seem to think that it was full steam ahead. And I was like, yeah, okay, let’s, let’s get into this. Um, and I’ve been absolutely addicted ever since. Like I knew that the brain rot would take me, but it’s, it’s insane.

Ellen: Hooray for the brain rot.

Bex: Supernatural brain rot didn’t inspire you to join a podcast, did it?

Alice: Well, I mean, that’s how I met Ellen, so.

Ellen: All right. So as you’ve probably gathered by now, My name’s Ellen. Um, I am also a member of the Supernatural to 9-1-1 pipeline. I’m a content [00:04:00] creator for Supernatural for many years now and, have been peripherally aware of the Gay Firefighter Show for a while as well, but I hadn’t started watching it.

I don’t, I’m not even sure if it was available in Australia for a while. But I like it. I don’t know, I, Supernatural had ended and I was just like, still hyper focused on that for a long time, um, or other things. But then, uh, after the things happened in season seven, um, in the show, I was like, you know what?

I think I’m ready for another ship in my life. So, so, and I thought, because I’m watching it for the first time and trying to avoid being spoiled for future stuff. Like I know. Some things that are going to happen and the, the vague kind of way things have played out over the years. But I, there’s a lot that I don’t know yet.

So I’m excited to kind of keep going with it and find out it’s in a way it’s torture watching it like week to week. And, [00:05:00] but I mean, I guess like, it’s like a fraction of the real experience that people have when they watch a show week to week anyway. Right. So yeah, I’m enjoying it so far. Season two has been great.

Bex: And I guess as a general introduction for all three of us, um, you might have noticed that we are Australian. Yes. So I think that sets us apart from some of the other podcasts that you might have listened to about 9-1-1 in that there are times that we have absolutely no idea what is going on, on our screens.

Literally. We rely on you, our dear listeners, to educate us as to what exactly is going on.

Ellen: And none of us are medical professionals either, so sometimes we try and work out what’s happening with, on that side as well, and we have no idea, so apologies in advance if we come up with some batshit theory.

That is just totally wrong. That can happen. Can and does happen.

Alice: And does [00:06:00] happen, yeah.

Ellen: But we have great time doing it, so whatever, we hope you do too. Alright, so season two.

Alice: God, yeah, we had a lot last season. Um, so we were, I’m not going to go through like every storyline, but I will do sort of a dot point about the like topics we covered, I guess.

Um, so we were introduced to Eddie and his son Christopher. Uh, we were introduced to Maddie. We dove more into “Bathena” which is Bobby and Athena’s relationship. Buck, we left Buck at the end of season one with his like, first serious girlfriend walking out on him, I guess. So he gets closure on that this, uh, this season with breaking up with her and moving out of her house.

Uh, Maddie has her ex husband stalking her, and then his death. We have the start of Madney, which is Chim and Maddie’s [00:07:00] relationship. Uh, we have Eddie and Shannon, and then Shannon’s unfortunate death, and then we end with Buck getting his leg trapped under the ladder truck.

Ellen: Oh, yeah. It is a lot. You’re right. It’s been quite a journey.

Alice: It has been quite a journey.

Bex: But it was nice to actually have a journey this season. I think that they really, the writers really took advantage of the fact that they had those eight extra episodes. To sort of stretch storylines out, rather than try and cram them all in to, um, to ten episodes.

And it actually allowed them to have some episodes where they sort of stepped out of the main storyline. And so we then do the Begins episodes to learn a little bit more about the characters backstories.

Alice: Yeah, previously we only really knew about Bobby and a bit of Hen, but now we know a lot more about Bobby and Hen and also Chimney.

Bex: Yes.

Ellen: Yeah, we had like [00:08:00] three Begins episodes in this season, right?

Bex: Yes. They were all,

Ellen: we didn’t have anything previously except for, um

Bex: We had “Point of Origin”, where we found out a little bit about Bobby.

Ellen: Yep.

Bex: But even that was just like a small snapshot of his past. But then we got to “Bobby Begins Again”, and that kind of expanded, and we got a little bit more about him.

the aftermath of what happened in Minnesota and how Bobby got to Los Angeles.

Ellen: Yeah, it’s funny having these, um, like, maybe it’d be different if you’re watching this live, obviously, but the, because these were aired in 2018, 2019, and having flashbacks to previous years, but because they’re already five years ago for us anyway, like they, it kind of loses a bit of impact, I think, having flashbacks for that time, because it’s not.

Like, I don’t know, I don’t know how to describe this. It’s like, it wasn’t [00:09:00] far enough back in time that it felt like a really long time ago, because it already kind of feels like a long time ago to us, because it was like pre COVID, like pre, you know, it was, uh, I don’t know. I’m not sure if I’m describing that very well, but.

Bex: Time is so wibbly wobbly on this show anyway, that it, who knows how far in the past it was. Yeah. Yeah. It can be as far in the past as you want it to be.

Ellen: That’s right.

Bex: Let’s last, for the season one wrap up, we did, um, our likes and dislikes.

Ellen: Yep.

Bex: So let’s maybe go that way, that might spark some conversation.

So, uh, let’s start with favorite character from season two.

Alice: Mine hasn’t changed. Mine is still Buck and Chim.

Ellen: I don’t remember who I said my favorite character was last season.

Bex: You said, and I quote, [00:10:00] um, you also loved Chim, but you found that you really loved Hen. Okay. So Chim and Hen were your favorite in season one.

So has that stayed the same? Has that changed? Have your love for them increased now that you’ve heard their backstories? Or has someone else stolen your heart?

Ellen: Um, no, I, I, I do like, okay. So I love, no, no, like, okay. This is going to be controversial perhaps, but I do, I do love Chim. I think he’s my favorite mostly because he’s had a great journey this season.

Like he started off quite, um, I dunno, kind of isolated and down after whatever happened in the first season, like he lost a lot of things. And obviously now we know that with the, the Chim Begins that he lost people in his life previously as well. He lost Kevin and that hit him pretty [00:11:00] hard. So we know that he has lost people in the past and he’s lonely, I guess.

So for him to get his story with Maddie and Even though he did get stabbed again and lay on the ground bleeding for weeks. Um, he has come through it all and he’s in a good place now and I, I think that’s really heartening and I love him. Um, Hen, I still love Hen but the thing is she hasn’t been, I feel like she hasn’t been in this season a lot.

Like she’s been there the whole time. She’s been involved in, in all of the stories in different ways. She’s still, you know, funny and snarky and, and lovely to everybody. Or like, you know, most of the people, but she, I feel like she hasn’t, apart from Hen Begins itself, she hasn’t really had any developing storylines through this whole season.

Does that sound right to you?

Bex: I think you are forgetting. I think Hen’s storylines were very much in the early first half of the season [00:12:00] when we got Eva coming back. Um, Denny’s Biological Father.

Ellen: Wasn’t that just one more episode though? We did get Denny’s Biological Father. That was in that Awful People episode, right?

Which was around the same time as Hen Begins. So I don’t, apart from those two, kind of, yeah, that little microcosm of the season.

Alice: Like, Chim definitely has more this season than Hen does.

Ellen: Anyway, um, that aside, I love all of the characters, and Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here, but I’ll just say it now so I don’t forget about it.

Um, they, they gave themselves in this, in this show, they’ve got such a huge ensemble cast and so many characters to involve in every storyline that they, because they had more episodes in this season, they gave them a lot more room to give everyone something to do. But they also increased the number of characters because even though we lost Abby, we gained [00:13:00] Eddie and Maddie as well.

So it was like everyone just had a bit of storyline. Like they had to spread it out. They had more episodes to do it in, but they still had to try and give everyone something to do in all of the seasons. So, um, yes, a couple of the characters maybe didn’t get as much. Well, not necessarily screen time, but, you know, quality plot arc time as, as others.

Alice: What about you Bex?

Bex: Well, my favorite character from the last wrap up episode, because we made it specifically season one, it was, Abby. So it kind of has to change this season because Abby was not in this season. Um,

Alice: I mean, she got a mention a couple of times.

Bex: Yeah, but I don’t think I can say that.

Alice: Buck was living in his invisible girlfriend’s house.

Bex: I don’t think that I can say that my favorite character is the one that just gets, you know, name dropped every couple of episodes.

Ellen: Her absence was loud in the [00:14:00] first few episodes and then we just forgot about her after that.

Bex: Um, but I don’t think it will come. as a surprise to anybody when I say that my favorite character from season two was Eddie Diaz.

Alice: What a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good man.

Ellen: I am unsurprised.

Bex: Considering how hard I simped for him on the podcast? Yeah, no, nobody is going to be surprised about that. I am actually surprised at how much he is my favorite, though.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: I think Especially with

Alice: season two, because like, we only really know him quite on a shallow level at this stage.

Ellen: Yeah, that’s pretty much why I wouldn’t say that he would be my favorite yet, because we, and even on a shipping level, like, there are some moments in this season, but they’re not really mates yet, you know?

Like, I guess Eddie’s very, he, he comes across as quite [00:15:00] flighty, I guess, like non committal. He doesn’t really want to talk to Shannon anymore. And then he is, when he’s all in, then it’s her that’s pulling away, you know, like, it’s, he’s, um, I don’t know. What do you think?

Bex: Maybe I like my men noncommittal and flighty and shallow.

But he’s just so damn pretty.

Alice: Noncommittal’s a very interesting way to describe Eddie. I’m not, I’m absolutely not saying you’re wrong. I just feel like we need to bookmark that.

Ellen: He’s very committed to Chris, which is great.

Alice: He’s very committed to certain things.

Ellen: He’s just, he doesn’t want to settle. But maybe, um, moving himself and Chris to LA was like the best thing he ever did to get away from his old life and

Alice: his parents.

Ellen: Sorry, I derailed.

Alice: No, no, that’s absolutely not derailed.

Bex: That is what this episode is all about, [00:16:00] is being derailed with our thoughts about the season.

Alice: No, Bex and I are just sitting here with popcorn, it’s fine. Um, I do want to give an honourable mention to

Bex: I’m making notes because I love with these, um these wrap up episodes, we’re just like compiling evidence that when we get to the end of certain seasons, we can just say, Hey, do you remember like three seasons ago when you said this?

Ellen: Well, I mean, I feel like I’m Bobby sitting in that chair in that little room at the moment. Like, ask me your probing questions.

Alice: Um, I do definitely want to give an honorable mention to Maddie, who is also one of my absolute favorite characters, like every time she cries I cry. I love Maddie so much.

Ellen: Can we talk about Maddie’s arc a little bit in this season?

Bex: Yeah, let’s do it.

Ellen: And she came in with a bang in the first episode, like, breaking into her brother’s apartment and having a shower, like

Bex: And having her brother walk in on her?

Ellen: Like, ran.

Alice: Having her brother try and molest [00:17:00] her?

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Um, it’s not even his apartment, by the way, it’s someone else’s.

Like, how, how did she, anyway, we’re getting into the, uh, what the hell of it all.

Bex: She got in by the virtue of boobs. I think she established that.

Ellen: And, um, like, this, this season has such a great arc for her where, like, it’s a terrible arc, but, oh my God, it was well done. I thought, like, that she, We discovered who Doug was, like, first we discovered that she had gone away from an abusive relationship, and then the introduction of Doug later was just, oh, so terrifying.

Really well done. And then obviously she had, we had the kidnapping, like we had the flight or fight, fight or flight episode, which is, I It’s going to be in my favourite episode list later when we talk about that. I don’t want to jump around to everything too quickly. But, um, yeah, the resolution of it all [00:18:00] was particularly sort of horrifying, but she’s come out of it, um, you know, freer, I suppose.

And yeah, it would have been perhaps nice to see, Um, the, the sort of trauma of all that a little more obvious in the end of the season. We don’t really see that. Like, she’s obviously thinking about leaving the dispatch and everything, but she ultimately decides not to.

Bex: They do gloss over it a little bit. A little.

Yeah. She’s like, okay, the, the worst has happened and now you are back to being happy.

Ellen: Yeah. Cause she sort of has, gets back with Chim and takes comfort in him, I guess. So she ends the season in a, in a much happier place. But yeah, um, we don’t see much of the trauma yet. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe there’s more to come.

Bex: I guess that’s the, uh, the downfall of being a network television show that, you know, they, the [00:19:00] angst and the trauma and the, the deeper emotional levels are, Or not something that you want to put on your week to week.

Ellen: Yeah, it could have been a much more depressing show. No,

Bex: your general audience is not going to be interested in probing the emotional depths of a character over an extended period of time.

They want the fun emergencies, and they want the romance, and they want the high level, the entertaining drama. Not the, um, sobbing into your tissues and feeling anxious every week kind of drama.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. We need to say a really big thank you to everyone who’s given us some feedback for this season, for us to talk about in this episode as well.

Thank you. Thank you for sending that to us. Really appreciate that. There was someone who sent, I saw, sent in something about Maddie and her journey. So first we’ve got to say a big thank you to Beckett, um, who sent, who gave us some feedback on Maddie’s [00:20:00] arc. So I’ll just quickly read a bit of it now just to, you know, highlight our points on Maddie.

They say, “I really liked how they did that arc. The gradual way we were introduced to the trauma Maddie went through and how it still affects her daily life, including triggers like Christmas decorations and then when Doug kidnaps her. I think they would do a really good job preserving her agency and strength as a character. Something that shows often quite struggle to do when telling stories about female victims of domestic violence. It would have been very easy and fitting with the procedural genre for them to have one of the hero characters arrive and rescue Maddie like a damsel in distress, but instead they allowed Maddie to recapture control of the situation using her intelligence and her strength. And she didn’t win by coincidence. She actually outsmarted him.”

Which was like, I absolutely agree with that’s true. That, that particular episode was such a great example of writing strong characters that can get themselves out of situations [00:21:00] rather than having someone come and save them, which is great.

So thank you, Beckett.

Alice: Thank you so much, Beckett. Yeah, I think we discussed it in that episode, that yeah, like, Buck doesn’t come to the rescue, he gets there after to support her, but ultimately, like, Maddie gets herself out of it.

Ellen: Yeah, and it’s like the same, it’s like, when people are in situations like that, they need to get their own strength, find their own strength to leave the situation to start with.

I mean, obviously, hopefully it never comes to actually murdering somebody, but this is like an extreme case. But yeah.

Bex: There is another part to Beckett’s feedback about what you talked about, Ellen, with continuing Maddie’s arc. He said, my only issue with the whole arc is that I wish we had seen at least a glimpse of Maddie take living with the weight of taking her husband’s life, maybe her going to therapy, or perhaps talking to [00:22:00] Athena about it in real life.

That isn’t something she would easily shake off. He was a horrible, evil man, but she still loved him at one point. And so for survivors, your feelings toward your abuser are often incredibly complex, and I would’ve liked to have seen that explored.

Ellen: Yeah. Thank you so much Beckett for your awesome thoughts.

Bex: Bexism, who is responsible for some of the great edits that are on TikTok and Twitter, who I, that I absolutely enjoy, they write, They thought that “Maddie was a huge addition to the, um, the show, that she showed more empathy and care than Abby did. So the random emergencies suddenly had a lot more emotion behind them and she also filled a gap that was missing and she is forever grateful for Jennifer Love Hewitt for saying that she should be with Chimney and not with Eddie, by the way. Because Chimney and Maddie are the cutest couple on TV at the moment, they just work so well together.”

And yeah, [00:23:00] I, I love that little random bit of knowledge that Maddie was supposed to be Eddie’s love interest, and Jennifer Love Hewitt rocked up on set one day, took one look at Kenneth Choi, took one look at Ryan Guzman, and went, actually, no, I want that one.

Alice: Yeah, I want that one. Which, yeah, I’m so glad they did, because, like, I feel like Chim and Maddie are at a more similar place.

Ellen: You know, they just fit, their stories fit together very well, don’t they? The way they’ve written them.

Bex: Now I want to write a fanfic to see what the road not taken would have looked like.

Ellen: Oh. But, like, would it have lasted? Because, you know

Bex: Oh, hell no.

Alice: Oh God, no. Absolutely not.

Bex: No. Eddie Diaz is a menace to women.

Alice: A U when, um, Eddie dates Maddie just to [00:24:00] get close to Buck or

Bex: I have no idea. I will put that in the back burner.

Alice: I actually read a fic recently, um, where it was like a A U meet cute between, um, Maddie and Chimney. And. It’s like, Chimney’s thoughts were like, yeah, he, she kind of looked like Buck, which he wasn’t going to look at too hard.

Ellen: Well, thank you, um, Bexism for that one.

And we also had, I’ve just put like, we’re just chopping bits of everyone’s feedback out, but Lucy, who is our, Our Aussie bestie, um, MishamigoHunk on Twitter. Hello, Lucy. Love you. Um, we have, um, she says that flight or fight, fight or flight, why can’t I say the name of this episode? “Fight or Flight” is one of her favorite [00:25:00] episodes.

And she says, “I think the main reason that is that the overarching message of don’t give up. Even if you think you’re not going to survive, keep fighting. And Jennifer Love Hewitt’s acting pulls you into the episode, into Maddie’s story. She never gave up. She was able to escape her abuser. And the sheer relief when she saw Buck and she realized it was over. She was safe again.”

So, yeah. Yeah, I think that even though there were parts of that episode that were a bit Like, we always have questions about every episode, don’t we? Especially with the driving around in circles for hours and hours, even though they were only going just there.

Bex: Two hours away?

Ellen: Yeah, that episode was just so, the tension was brilliant all the way through.

And, um, yeah. Like, awful, horrible subject material, but done in a really nice, a really great way.

Alice: Done in a really good way, yeah.

Ellen: Should we go on to favorite episodes then since we’re [00:26:00] on the way there?

Bex: Well, we were doing favorite characters. I’m just wondering if anyone had a, like a least favorite character for this season, just to finish off.

Ellen: Captain Gerrard.

Bex: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Gerrard, definitely. I know he was only in two episodes, but those two episodes were, he was so very impactful that he canceled out everybody else this season for least favorite character.

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: Can we say Abby, even though she, no, I’m kidding.

Bex: Sure. You can say Abby, but be prepared for me to jump back off my soapbox and defend that woman with my life again.

Alice: Um, no, I think Gerrard. is such an easy answer for most hated this season because

Bex: I don’t think that there was anybody else really unless you

Ellen: Doug. We forgot him.

Bex: Oh yeah, Doug. Again, that’s an easy answer though.

Ellen: Like I get, I guess both of them are on like the cartoon evil villain kind of level, like everyone has to hate them [00:27:00] because they are the bad guys and there’s no, there’s no gray area really for those guys.

Alice: I guess we can say um, oh what was the woman in Dispatch?

Bex: Gloria.

Alice: Gloria?

Ellen: Oh, yeah.

Bex: I think Gloria would be there, but I think when I was trying to think about who I didn’t like in Season 2, Gloria is an easy answer, but she was only in there for sort of one episode.

Ellen: Well, two technically, I guess.

Bex: Eh, technically, but at least Gerrard had multiple appearances, and you could really, like, get to know him, even if you didn’t want to.

Yeah. Same with Doug, I guess. Doug had multiple episodes.

Ellen: Yeah, he did, yeah. And he was, he was, it wasn’t horrible in all of them. It was only

Bex: No, Jason was, was quite, um, charming when he was, you know, pickpocketing Chim.

Ellen: Yeah. Stabbing him.

Alice: Yeah, you could definitely see, [00:28:00] like, how I think they did really well with Doug that, you know, he wasn’t, he didn’t just come in and was like, Oh, I’m so evil.

Ha ha ha ha. Like he did befriend Chim and Chim fell for his charms as well.

Ellen: Yeah. Well, I mean even Charles Manson was supposed to be a really nice guy. So.

Alice: Well, that’s it. Like abusers aren’t just evil 24 7 because otherwise, like, no one would go near them.

Ellen: Yeah. That’s why we have to believe them when they, when they say things about people.

Alice: That’s it.

Ellen: Yeah, there have been some horrible people in this. I was thinking some awful people, awful people. I was, I was trying to think of like, whether the porch pirate lady was in this season or if it was in season one, she was pretty horrible.

Alice: She’s in both.

Bex: Yeah. She’s in both, right?

Alice: Yeah. I am fairly sure she’s also in Lone Star.

Ellen: Oh God.

Bex: As a Porch Pirate?

Alice: [00:29:00] Yep.

Ellen: Oh, wow.

Bex: Oh, bloody hell, Tim . Tim Minear stop plagiarizing yourself challenge .

Alice: Yeah, like she moves to Texas for like part of her rehab.

Ellen: Oh really? Oh, .

Bex: Oh, that’s hilarious.

Alice: It was definitely like the Leo pointing meme when I watched it. I was just like, Hey.

Bex: Alright, cool. Now that we are sort of unanimous in our hatred for Captain Gerrard and Doug. Yeah. Uh, with honourable mentions to Gloria. Um, yeah, let’s go on to episodes. So what was everyone’s favourite episode?

Ellen: Alright, well I already said Fight or Flight for tension and storytelling reasons. But I have to say for pure hilarity slash, like, gut wrenching sadness, um, Dosed was up there for me.[00:30:00]

Alice: Dosed is pretty good.

Ellen: Like, it was weirdly juxtaposed with. The, you know, the sadness and the, like, um, seriousness of Bobby kind of relapsing and then thinking about his family and how he lost them. And plus the team being, like, extremely high. So. I don’t know, it was just

Bex: And the teeny tiny little ladies.

Alice: Plus you get Taylor Kelly!

Ellen: And Taylor Kelly.

Alice: I will always be a Taylor Kelly apologist. I’m not even sorry.

Bex: Yeah.

Alice: Yeah. Alice, what about you? I was gonna say Chimney Begins. I’m going through the episode list and I think Like the way they do Chimney Begins is so good. Yes,

Ellen: from a film kind of cinematography point of view, it’s brilliant.

Alice: I think Buck actually has to get a special mention, too.

Ellen: Mm hmm.

Alice: Just because I do love me some Buck. So yeah, my two favorites are definitely, like, my favorite character centric, so. That makes sense. I’m easy [00:31:00] to please. Give me Chim bleeding out and Buck getting fucked over and I’m a happy woman.

Ellen: How about you, Bex?

Bex: I, I have two, um, the, the wanky answer, if I want to appear like intelligent and, and, you know, cultured is “Chimney Begins”, just because I appreciate the, the artistry that went behind that episode, the way that they incorporated Chimney’s reality with Chimney’s life flashing before his eyes, the way they merged all the different layers, the absolutely inspired use of the Radiohead song in that, um, in the waiting room scene where Chim is bleeding out…

Alice: I just like him dancing,

Bex: but not bleeding out. And, um, yeah, I think I, that is the high point of the season as far as, as technically it is the high point of the season. Having said that, it’s not an episode that I [00:32:00] will just put on and watch for fun. Um, so I appreciate it. That is my wanky answer. Yes. Oh yes, “Chimney Begins”.

But if you asked me really what my favorite episode would be, Um, it would be “Stuck”. And I think that’s because It’s, we talked a lot, uh, during the first season and this season about the themed episodes and I always keep coming back to “Stuck” being an example of how to do the themed episodes well.

Because they had the theme working on both literal and metaphorical and emotional levels. And it’s also, it’s like it’s a Chris and Eddie episode. And how can you go past Chris and Eddie and Buck and the 9-1-1 being, um, the 1 18 being adorable with Chris all episode. You can’t go past that. That’s like the heartwarming episode.

So that is my favorite of season two just because it’s so fun [00:33:00] to watch And so well done and it’s a good ensemble, but it still moves the storyline forward. It’s like everything that’s good about this show is from “Stuck”.

Ellen: Yep. And then they follow it up with “Awful People”, which I think is probably one of our least favourite maybe?

Alice: I was going to say, yeah, I think Awful People was one of my least, for sure.

Ellen: Yeah, it’s just, none of the, the, the sort of storylines from that, that episode were particularly impactful in any way.

Bex: It’s the opposite of how, it’s the how not to do a themed episode.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. They were, they were, I mean, they were awful people, so I guess they were on theme, but.

Bex: But I guess, like, Stuck was, you had people being literally stuck and then you had people being like psychologically and emotionally stuck, whereas everyone was literally an awful person in this show, and like over the top awful.

Alice: [00:34:00] Yeah.

Bex: Um, there’s no subtlety in it.

Alice: No. Like as if Gloria would have got that far just hanging up on people constantly.

Bex: And then there was that whole thing about where we, I think this is one of the episodes where we discovered that they cut a whole storyline, so the episode is just filled with filler shots to make up the time.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: Like watching 15 whole seconds of trucks racing down highways, freeways, interstates.

Ellen: Was that the one with the tiger? No, that was

Bex: that was Karma from the first season.

Ellen: Oh, Karma, okay, okay.

Bex: Was it? Oh. Yeah. Awful People was Gloria. It was the protest at the cemetery.

Ellen: Yeah, yeah.

Alice: Oh, that’s right. And yeah, they said something about a movie theatre, and it still says in the synopsis In the promo, yeah.

And a movie theatre, and there was no movie theatre in it at all.

Bex: Yeah. Oh, and then Eva. Eva showed up.

Ellen: That’s right, and she went back to jail. Yeah, alright. [00:35:00] I mean, I didn’t mention, like, the, um, the earthquake episodes, but I think there were, I’m not sure if I like them quite as much as like the plane crash episode from the first season, but they’re pretty, they were pretty amazing.

Like in the high stakes kind of, uh, disaster, excitement and, and tension kind of viewpoint. I’m not, I’m not counting them in the least favorite. This is in the like high favorite, the most favorite. In the

Alice: honorable

Bex: mention category. Yeah.

Ellen: They’re on the upside of the, of the ranking.

Bex: They really set the standard for 9-1-1 moving forward.

So, you know, starting the season off with a high stakes emergency, a multi episode arc based on a high stakes emergency, um, is a pattern that they continue for the rest of the show.

Ellen: I enjoyed the, um, the way that they sort of progressed that, that episode. I don’t know, [00:36:00] never been in a real earthquake, so I’m not sure how realistic any of it was, but I was gripped, I was on the edge of my seat watching it the whole time, so, yeah.

Um, I think my other episode that was my least favorite though. Like I, even though I enjoy learning more about the past of these characters, I really didn’t enjoy the Begins episodes all that much. Like, and I think it’s mostly because, um, it’s about going back to that toxic atmosphere under Gerrard, and I just missed.

the current team. Every time I watched them, I was like, Oh, yeah. I’m like, guys, I was hand like, you know, it was, yeah, I, I was looking forward to getting back to the real timeline after watching them. So I think they’re all there on my not, not so much favorite list.

Bex: No, that’s fair enough.

Ellen: But it does mean we can see how far they’ve come, you know, building the team that they have now.[00:37:00]

The other one that I didn’t enjoy as much was the episode 17, “Careful What You Wish For”.

Bex: Yeah, that one’s on my list of episodes that I don’t enjoy, and I think it’s after watching it for the podcast and nitpicking it, I’m figuring out why I didn’t like it. Yeah. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s risen up in the ranks of episodes that I do not enjoy watching.

Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah, it’s just a strangely cobbled together storylines like bits from, you know, it’s almost like they got, they gathered up the ends of different things that they needed to resolve before the end of the season and just chucked them all in this episode.

Bex: Yeah, it just, yeah, I think we discussed it in that episode.

It feels like, it’s a, it feels badly constructed. It’s, it feels like filler. And then you have the, the storyline with Shannon, which. Yeah.

Alice: I feel like they, like, care for what you wish for is definitely, like, [00:38:00] shock value more than anything. Like, hey, look at all this weird shit, now tune in for the last episode next week.

Ellen: I mean, I’m guessing that they, you know, killed Shannon off for shock value, right? Like why else do you kill off a character like that in such a dramatic way?

Bex: Yeah, so the shock value or to motivate your other characters.

Ellen: Yeah. I mean, we talk about all of that stuff in a bit more detail and like a lot more detail in our, um, our episode covering that one.

So we don’t need to cover it too much now because it is sad subject material, but we don’t enjoy where they took Shannon in the end or at any point in this season, to be honest.

Alice: Uh, yeah, we got some feedback about Shannon as well.

Ellen: Oh, yeah.

Alice: Yeah, there we go, Birdie from um, who’s another one of our Supernatural to 9-1-1 pipeline victims.

Ellen: Victims. You say that like it’s a bad thing.[00:39:00]

Alice: Hostages? Yeah. So the feedback we got from Birdie was “Shannon’s so upsetting because imagine going through a friend breakup where you lose what you had with your best friend, but you’re married and you have a child together and you’re not in love. Not really, but doing the actions of being in love. How, you know, to fix things, but it’s not working.

And then she dies. And suddenly you’re mourning the best friend you ever had. Actually lost years earlier, and the only people in your life who actually remember her hate her.” Which is a good point, because yeah, like, who’s Eddie got to talk to about her? Because he can’t talk to his parents, because they think that she’s a terrible person.

So then Bertie goes on to say, “Yeah, of course, Eddie revises his memory and talks about her as if she was the love of his life. We’ve already established that’s how he knows how to fix things, and God knows he can’t just let the only memories Chris has of his mum be her leaving and then Eddie’s family shit talking her.

I understand why Shannon left, but I feel like the writers could have explained it in a different way [00:40:00] that made it sound less like my disabled child was too much work, which was definitely my interpretation of her on my first watch through, but ‘Eddie Begins’ helps re contextualize things a bit.”

Ellen: Thank you, Birdie. Great feedback. Um, yeah, I feel like I, not having seen “Eddie Begins” yet, yeah, I already spoken about this in the last couple episodes, but I feel like, I felt like at the time that there was so much more to what was going on with Shannon than what we’ve seen. And

Alice: yes, like honestly, watching “Careful What You Wish For” the second time was so much worse, like emotionally, than the first time.

Ellen: I mean, he can talk to Buck about her. Because he’s already talked to Buck about her. Like, Buck knows that he would Like, he wasn’t he telling someone else in the in one of the episodes that he they’re sleeping together but he they’re married but they’re not actually together anymore or something? Like, he was explaining to Bobby or somebody?

about [00:41:00] this? And Bobby was like, yeah, it’s weird. I can’t remember who he was talking to about it. Did I just make that up? Am I writing fan fiction, like, live on air here?

Alice: He talks to Buck a bit. Buck, I know Buck talks to Bobby about, like, living in

Ellen: No, I mean, but

Alice: Abby’s house,

Bex: no, no, no.

Ellen: Buck is talking to

Bex: Buck was talking to Chim at Christmas tree shopping.

Ellen: Okay, yeah, okay. Yeah, that’s right, yeah.

Bex: So Eddie Eddie had talked to Buck about it Buck was talking to Chim about it. Um, but I think the difference is that Buck doesn’t know Shannon. Yeah. So everything that he gets is what Eddie has told him, so he can’t really, you know, pull Eddie up when he starts to romanticise or start to re write history.

He can only parrot back to Eddie what Eddie has already told him. Whereas at least everybody else in his life, they wouldn’t, like his parents, his grandparents, his son, they know, they know her and they can help him fill in the gaps, whereas Buck couldn’t do that.

Ellen: It’s a very [00:42:00] tragic storyline.

Needlessly

Bex: tragic.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, we did. We, so if you wanna hear us like, you know, expounding on that a lot more , go and listen to our Careful what you wish for Episode .

Alice: Yeah. ’cause we could probably spend another hour bitching about it, but, um, , yeah. We’ve already been

Ellen: there. let’s not go there again. I mean, that, that episode itself was a weird one to start with and then for that to be at the end of it was kind of, you know, the nail in the coffin on the not liking it list

Bex: Yes, definitely.

Ellen: Terrible morbid joke to make on that episode. Sorry, I apologize.

Bex: Oh no, I just got that.

Ellen: I didn’t, I didn’t mean that at the time, I just realized. Oh, I did also have, I’ve got a lot of highlights this season, I realized, like, I was going through the list going, oh yeah, I like that one, I like that one.

Like, I know that we do tend to pull these episodes apart and, and hate on them a lot, but [00:43:00] um,

Bex: Honestly, some of them need it.

Ellen: Yeah, yeah. But on a surface watch level, I really loved “Ocean’s 9-1-1”. I thought it was so much fun. To watch, just to watch the first time. And then, then when we started talking about it, I was like, okay, this is… There’s a lot about this that doesn’t make any sense at all.

Bex: No, but like I said when I went on my rant about it, I also enjoy that episode. I am quite happy to switch my brain off and just enjoy the pretty moving pictures and the pretty people and some of the clever ways that they put scenes together and they write it.

Still does not mean that I think it’s terribly written and it’s a horrible, horribly constructed mystery that does not work in the genre that they are trying to make it work in.

Yeah. But I still enjoy it.

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: Um, it’s funny that you give it an honorable mention because, um, Lucy, who we mentioned, [00:44:00] uh, wrote in, um, actually named the heist as her least favorite episode.

Ellen: Sorry, Lucy.

Bex: I think she said, like, for the same reason, because it was

Ellen: She says, “I get what they were attempting to do, but I feel like they tried too hard. The only saving graces were the poor bastard in the armored truck and the interrogation scene.” They were the funniest parts, definitely.

Bex: The interrogation scene was good.

Alice: I feel like the first half of that episode was really good, and then the second half it kind of fell apart a little bit.

Ellen: Yeah, that’s true.

Bex: The first half was, they were trying to do a heist, but it wasn’t even. Like, it’s trying to be Oceans Eleven, but that was the Oceans gang pulling off the heist, not somebody else pulling off the heist, so then the rest of the episode becomes the mystery of solving the heist, um, and they, and they didn’t do that very well either because they [00:45:00] needed to have the really long exposition at the end where everyone explained to stupid Buck exactly what had happened, although I do like the way they did that section, because of all of the, um, the fourth wall breaks and some of the musical cues worked really well.

Ellen: Yeah, that was very Ocean’s Eleven as well. They do that kind of thing in that movie.

Bex: But if they had, if they had crafted their mystery properly, they wouldn’t have needed that scene as much. But like I said, I ranted about this for quite a bit in the actual episode on Ocean’s, on “Ocean’s 9-1-1”, so I won’t go into it again, mostly because I can’t remember most of what I said about it, and I think I was

Alice: Like, yeah, I definitely like it for a switch your brain off episode. Um, I don’t like how they portray Buck to be dumb, but also, he’s season two Buck, so I’m not too mad about it. It is

Bex: interesting, though, that Buck tends to be the audience stand in. If they, if they have not done their job properly by showing the audience and they need to [00:46:00] tell the audience.

It seems to be the buck is the one that they tell it to.

Ellen: But he is like the youngest and the, um, least experienced, I guess, so therefore he is the child that needs explaining to.

Alice: Let me hold your hand while I say this. Living in your ex girlfriend’s apartment is weird.

Bex: Yeah, but he acknowledged that it was weird too.

Alice: I know. Do you think it’s weird? Yes. Yeah, me too. Don’t tell anyone.

Bex: And this is Buck 2. 0. He’s grown beyond Buck 1. 0.

Alice: That’s it. He’s getting there. He’s getting there.

Ellen: Alright, let’s give Buck a bit of attention. I did notice through my as I was kind of thinking about this season that, um, Buck starts off the season living in Abby’s apartment, obviously.

Um, and he ends the season in his own apartment, which he only moves into in that episode, like the finale episode, [00:47:00] after having been couch surfing in various locations throughout the season. So I kind of got the feeling overall that he had been a little bit lost, a little bit, um, unmoored, I guess. And now that he has a place to call home, hopefully he will be a little more settled in his life.

Alice: I think the interesting thing is that they finally had him, like, settled just to have a firetruck fall on him. So we definitely left the season, like, the end of the season was buck. not knowing what his future is going to be. That’s right. He’s physically

Bex: settled. He’s got a place to live. But even like within the place that he’s living, he’s unsettled because he can’t sleep in his own bed.

He has to sleep on the couch in his own new apartment.

Ellen: Yeah, that’s true.

Bex: But the rest of his life is completely up in the air.

Ellen: [00:48:00] Oh, so he kind of did a bit of a 180. He was, he was like setting his career and everything, but didn’t have anywhere to live. Yeah. And now he has someone to live with, but he has no career, potentially.

Oh, poor thing. Also, his girlfriend broke up with him, and I feel like at the moment, I am shipping Buck with this. anybody who will give him some kind of stability and hang around and accept him for the dangerous career that he has chosen.

Alice: I was going to say with the therapist, but after season one, maybe not.

Bex: No, the therapist just keeps SA-ing him. Let’s not ship him. Um, Buck and Taylor Kelly, I think they were good for each other.

Alice: Me too. As I said, number one, Taylor Kelly, apologist right here.

Ellen: They were very casual though. Like she was just like, yeah, I just want a fling, you know?

Alice: Yeah, that’s it. Um, we got some great feedback from, uh, Nikki, uh, about Buck and Ali, actually.

Um, so Nikki, friend of the podcast, um, she’s the [00:49:00] one who has done the spreadsheet for the trigger warnings we use at the start of every episode.

Bex: Thank you so much for that, Nikki.

Alice: So yeah, we, we love you, Nikki. Her feedback was that she didn’t think that they spent enough time on the Buck and Ali relationship for the finale to pay off like they wanted.

“It’s fine because she wasn’t really there, but it just feels like a continuation of the Buck is in a relationship with a ghost. It’s his girlfriend in Canada, you wouldn’t know her.” Which is, yeah, a really good point, because honestly, like, the first time I watched the finale, I was like, who the fuck is this girl?

And I’m like, Oh, right. It’s the earthquake girl who he saw in like one episode.

Bex: It didn’t help that the actress dyed her hair between the start of the season and the end of the season. So she was a blonde when we first met her and now she’s a brunette. And they literally have to like, they had to remind us who she was.

Yes. Yeah. It’s like when you’re standing a K pop group and they dye their hair for [00:50:00] the second comeback and suddenly you have to learn who all the members are again, because you’ve just been focusing, okay, that’s the one with the pink hair and that’s the one with the red hair, and suddenly they’ve all got black hair and you don’t know who they are anymore.

Alice: I think Bex is speaking from experience here.

Ellen: It’s almost exactly like that.

Yeah, you’re right. We didn’t, know Ali at all, really. Like, it’s similar to Shannon, I guess. We probably knew Shannon only slightly better than Ali.

Alice: But, like, at least we had a bit of backstory for Shannon. Um, yeah. Like, you know, we know that her and Eddie obviously are married and have a child together.

Ali just sort of, like, popped in occasionally. I think they got coffee once, and then They were being really inappropriate in front of a realtor. Like, that was it.

Ellen: And she was just out of town a lot, which is just code for, we didn’t want her to come into every episode.

Alice: Yeah, we didn’t want to pay the actress, so.

Ellen: He was obviously really upset [00:51:00] about, like, he’s feeling a lot of emotions about the whole not being able to work again thing, but then it meant that his reaction to her saying that she didn’t think she was ready to be in this relationship. It was, it felt like it was a little over the top. Like, not over the top, but you know, it was a very big reaction to, I don’t know, her basically breaking up with him.

Bex: So again, the

Ellen: Which is probably fair. Now that I’ve said that I’m like, what are you talking about, Ellen? I’ve got no idea.

Bex: No, no, no, I understand, but it’s another one of those examples where the show was trying to do something and they forgot to show us that. Like, they were trying to make the relationship bigger to make this scene a little bit more impactful that, you know, um, but everything in Buck’s life is disappearing out.

But they forgot to show us that, so they had to, like, tell us at the last second and we’re just sitting there going, uh, sure, okay, I guess?

Alice: The writers are basically like, [00:52:00] yeah, Ali’s been around all year, I don’t know what you guys are talking about, it’s like we’ve literally seen her once, like what are you talking, we saw Taylor more than Ali.

Ellen: And she’s been there twice, hasn’t she? She was, they had the, well she was in the, obviously the earthquake episode, but then she came back for like the coffee with Buck one time.

Bex: It was like one, it was the final scene of “Buck Actually.”

Alice: Yeah, like they literally go get coffee together and then we don’t see her again

Bex: until she helps Buck move into, um, She gets name dropped when, um, Buck and Maddie are doing their sibling sparring.

And Buck is trying to get Maddie to ask Chim out and Maddie throws it back to him and is like, “How’s your girlfriend? Like the one who’s left. What is it with you and girls who leave the state?” But then again, after that reference, we don’t see her again until she’s helping Buck pick his apartment.

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: Poor Buck.

Alice: Bexism as well [00:53:00] mentions that, um, she knows the writers were “probably going for the fact that Abby changed Buck into the person he became, but the fact he met Eddie, met Christopher, and he changed into the responsible, happy, friendly Buck we know, I’d like to credit him meeting someone who became his person.

He had the 118, but when Eddie came along, it, um, it felt like he filled the gap that Buck needed.”

Bex: And let’s talk about that, because very definitely there was a shift within the team unit, um, by introducing Eddie and bringing Ryan into the cast. Um, and it feels like on paper it shouldn’t work that way, but it does.

Because if you look at the makeup of the 118, and I’m talking about like the core 118, not the, like, not John and the others who are just floating around in the background and who don’t get to go on any calls, um,

Alice: who don’t even get to eat dinner,

Bex: but if you look at it from like [00:54:00] season one, you had. The core of them was the four of them.

You had Bobby, Buck, Chim and Hen, which is a nice little, um, even number, a nice little grouping. Then you come to season two, you add in Eddie Diaz and suddenly you’ve got five, which again, you can make it work because then you’d kick Bobby up outside the group as their sort of superior, and then you’d have the four of them underneath Bobby.

But Eddie is a paramedic, like he’s, he was brought in because he was an army medic, so you would think that he would be off to the side with Chim and Hen making some of the paramedics and then Buck would be over here as the pure firefighter. But instead they kind of kick Eddie over to hang with Buck to balance it all out.

So on paper it should work, but it does. There is, suddenly you realize that there was a [00:55:00] gap in the 118 and that Eddie slips in and perfectly fills it. And it’s like, He was always there.

Ellen: It does feel like he’s always been there now. But, you know.

Alice: And Buck is so mad about it at the start, and then as soon as he realises, okay, no, this is actually what we’ve all been missing.

Bex: It’s what he’s been missing, because he has been watching Chim and Hen work together as a well oiled unit. But he’s kind of been left with Dad and like Dad is cool, but Dad is still Dad, but now he has his own buddy. It’s like Bobby got him a friend.

Alice: Literally, it’s when you have a dog and then your dog needs a friend.

So you get your dog a dog. Which is why I ended up with three dogs. Because my dog was lonely and needed a friend. So I got him a dog and then my dog’s dog needed a friend. So now I have another dog.

Ellen: It’s like, this is my boyfriend and my boyfriend’s boyfriend, Steve.

Alice: This is my puppy [00:56:00] Buck and Buck’s puppy Eddie.

Bex: But it, it works because then he can send, when you see that this season, it’s just Buck and Eddie. Buck and Eddie, go and do this. Buck and Eddie, go and do that.

Alice: Bobby was sick of babysitting, and so he was like, you know what, that guy’s a single father. He’s great at babysitting.

Bex: It does free Bobby up to be more of a supervisory, like, hands off captain, if he wants to be or if he needs to be, because he doesn’t have to keep his eye on The,

Alice: the puppy, the puppy.

Ellen: Like, I don’t know how much of this, of that kind of, um, way of looking at it is a product of having watched like seven and a half seasons of this, uh, or, you know, less than that, I guess, of like six and a half seasons are we up to that? Yeah. Yeah. Not including season one. Um, because, for me, it’s still very much like, um, Chim and Hen have [00:57:00] got this close relationship where they, you know, have beers together and do that.

But, um, apart from taking Eddie to the hospital and taking them to Santa photos, that’s, that was pretty much the, the only sort of bestie ism that we see to start with. Like there’s not, they’re not like that tight yet.

Bex: When you go back every time, every time they go on a call, it’s Buck and Eddie.

It’s one word. Buck-and-Eddie go and do this, Buck-and-Eddie go and do that.

Ellen: Professionally, they are the, the, the strong guys that go and do this stuff while the paramedics do their thing.

Bex: No, that’s what I’m, I’m talking about it from a professional level. Is that suddenly you’ve got this guy

Alice: Yeah, like, even in the earthquake, which is like, they’ve just met each other and it’s like, yeah, Buck-and-Eddie go and do this.

Ellen: Yeah, no, totally, totally. I see that.

Bex: And like, it shouldn’t work because Eddie being a paramedic, you would think that he would be doing the paramedic shit, but it’s like, no, I need you to, your, your medical training is useful, but I need [00:58:00] you just to be a firefighter. So you can be Buck’s partner. So that Buck has someone to, you know, belay him when he does the maneuver.

Um, so that you can go and like, hang off, you can go and stand at the top of the bridge while he goes down to, to try and convince Lola not to jump, that sort of thing. So professionally, they, they become a unit, they become professional buddies to balance the paramedic buddies on the other side, with then Bobby sort of at the top of them.

Alice: So question, do we think that Eddie and Buck would have become friends if Eddie had met Buck 1. 0?

Bex: Oh no, he would have hated Buck 1. 0.

Ellen: Do you think so?

Bex: Yes. Yeah. Because now think about it, you’ve got Eddie who was. Who is, like, he is a father, he was in the military, so he, before Buck corrupted him, he was very, very definite about following [00:59:00] orders. Um, he, we’ve already talked about, you know, he’s a good Catholic boy from Texas, so he probably has very sort of, uh, narrow moral, narrow morality when it comes to sort of sexuality and relationships.

So for him to come in and meet Buck 1. 0, who is stealing firetrucks for hookups.

Alice: Literally stealing firetrucks for hookups.

Bex: And for hookups, he’s just like going through women like they’re Kleenex. Um, um, Eddie would, Eddie would not have wanted any part of Buck. It might have been a little bit of sort of ingrained jealousy that he wished because he never got to have that because, you know, he went from being like, I’m still saying that he was a teenager when Shannon got knocked up.

So he’s went from being a teenager to being in the army, to being a father and then being a firefighter. So he never got his chance to, you know, steal a firetruck and hook up with women that you meet on call. So it might’ve been a little bit of lingering jealousy, but yeah, he absolutely would have hated Buck 1. [01:00:00] 0.

And he definitely would not have let Buck 1. 0 anywhere near his kid.

Alice: Oh god, yeah, yeah, no.

Ellen: Well, I’m looking forward to seeing how that changes everything next season. I know only the slightest inkling of what’s coming, so.

Alice: I think the only other thing we got was from Mads who, I think I mentioned last week, um, who’s helping me with some fanfic stuff.

Ellen: Yep.

Alice: Basically said the only season two thoughts she has is that thank God for Eddie and Maddie, uh, which I think is a, it’s definitely, um, an opinion that a lot of the fandom have,

like, I know when I started, I was told a lot, like, it gets better in season two, it gets better in season two. And it does, it definitely [01:01:00] does, but that’s not saying that season one is bad.

Bex: I think season two, because they were more secure in their position as, like, season one, they only had 10 episodes and there was always probably that doubt in their heads of are we actually going to get picked up for a second season.

Um, season two, they got picked up, they had 18 episodes. There was probably, they had a little bit more reassurance that they would be able to keep going for a third season. I have not looked up any of the, um, the network news and when they ordered seasons and how many episode seasons they got green lit for, so.

I’m just talking out of my ass here. Um, but I feel like with season two they felt more secure in their position and allowed them to do those multi episode arcs. With the stories. So they, it took, rather than just doing a one episode plane crash, you got your three episode [01:02:00] earthquake. And especially the last, like, seven, five or seven episodes, where they had breadcrumbs dropping in each episode, which linked episode to episode, which then all paid off. In the last episode.

Alice: Yeah, definitely.

Bex: Which I think I mentioned in, one of the episodes, you know, it starts with, um, Broken, which then introduces Marty, which then introduces Ocean’s 9-1-1, which, um, then introduces Bobby Begins, which then introduces Freddy, which then gets us into Careful What You Wish For with the mail bombs, which then gets into the, the culmination with the season finale.

So, like, you’ve got five episodes that aren’t necessarily part one, part two, part three, but they had this lovely flow through all five episodes so that they’re nicely linked. Like those five episodes, the writers knew what they were doing. Yeah.

Which we didn’t see in season [01:03:00] one. Every, I think every episode in season one was very standalone ish.

Alice: Um, Lucy and Bexism say the same sort of thing with season two. Um, so Lucy says, “I feel like in many shows, season two will also always be a big step up from the first season. They have an audience, they have the universe set up and can relax a bit, maybe get into more of a groove. 9-1-1’s no exception, though to be fair, I feel like every season pretty much ramps up from the one before in this show. It almost feels like a challenge, especially with the three part disaster premieres.”

Um, and Bexism mentions. ” The difference in quality were, was enormous. The color gradings got, uh, completely different. The camera work was much more professional. The characters seemed to even out and it was like the writers knew who they were writing at that point instead of being all over the place. And the costume and makeup department did a much better job of hair and styling.”

Bex: Right, yeah. Interesting. Those are interesting observations. I don’t really [01:04:00] notice the the cinematography and the camera work, so.

Alice: I think that’s what’s interesting hearing from, um, Bexism, I normally call her Bex but we have another Bex, so I’m going by her full username, um, her full legal username here, um, is that because she does a lot of editing, she would notice that sort of stuff?

Yes. So yeah, definitely interesting to think of it through a different eye.

Bex: I just thought of another question that, um, we asked in the season one wrap up that I’m going to ask for the season two wrap up. Um, do you have a favorite emergency or a favorite call from season two?

Ellen: Oh, geez. Um, No. Okay, I’m going to have to look back through the list of episodes again now.

Alice: Yeah. I’m doing the same thing. I’m like, what?

Bex: Uh, while you do that, I can probably answer because since [01:05:00] I’ve asked the question, I had my answer prepared.

Ellen: Yeah, go for it.

Bex: Um, surprisingly, um, considering how much shit I gave it when we actually watched the episode, the water bomber.

Ellen: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Bex: Yeah. Yeah. Um, there’s, I just, I know that once I looked into it, it like shattered the glass, it burst the bubble and I realized how absolutely 100 percent inaccurate it is.

Um, but there is still something so awe inspiring about this massive plane just swooping down and dropping all the water on top of the houses and the trucks and then swooping away, flying away again.

So, I think that is

Alice: That was also a very informative episode because, um, so I have just moved to a bushfire prone area.

Um, we have had a couple of bushfires here over the last 15 [01:06:00] years ish. Um, anyway, my dad was talking about how the last time there was a bushfire, he saw, like, the planes. dumping water, but he’s like, “Oh, they weren’t dumping them like on a fire. They were dumping them along the power lines.” And I was like, “well, that’s because it’s actually a fire retardant, not something to fight the fire and it’s to prevent the fire.”

And he’s just like, Oh, okay. Like facts.

Ellen: Don’t say television never tought you anything.

Alice: Very informative episode there. Yeah. That’s it.

Bex: And then I think honorary mention would have to be the, um, the crowd of people rushing to help lift the truck off Buck. Oh yes. For the season finale. Oh yeah. Just again, 100 percent unrealistic, and it’s not even that kind of amazing.

It’s just, you know, a bunch of people coming to lift a truck a little bit to pull Buck out. But like I said, cry [01:07:00] every single time I see it. So I think the fact that just the, the, that it elicits such a strong emotional response from me, even if I’ve seen it five, six, seven times, it kind of has to go on my list.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think I, like, okay, I’m probably cheating by saying this, but the earthquake itself was pretty brilliant as a

Bex: Yeah, no, go for it.

Alice: That’s fair. Yeah.

Ellen: Like, the emergencies that came from that, both with, like, what the crew were doing, like getting under the building and trying to find survivors.

And the stuff that Athena was going through on the freeway and all that stuff was just, um, it was great.

Bex: Strong arming, small business owners.

Ellen: Uh, yeah, that part not so much, but, um, you know, the car on fire and all that stuff, I mean, I know at the time I was like pretty critical of all of that, but, you know, it was exciting.[01:08:00]

You know, what happened in an episode.

Bex: I think that’s the great thing about, like, doing this sort of wrap up thing. Like, when we’re watching the episode for the show, and we’re so deep into it, um, we’re pulling it to pieces, we’re holding this part up and saying how terrible it is.

But then, by the time you get to the end of the season, you can take a step back and actually go, Actually, you know what? I really did like this.

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: Yeah, like, I actually love this show. We do love this show.

Bex: I do love this show.

Ellen: Even if we’re just saying every week how stupid everything is.

Bex: But we’re saying it with love.

Ellen: Yeah, that’s how we show love.

Alice: We are saying it with love. Speaking of, like, awful, unrealistic emergencies, I was, like, my first Like, gut reaction was the shark on the freeway. Like, it’s just, it’s so dumb, but it’s so heartwarming. And you get like the, um, like the whole jaws thing and it was just like, Oh, right.

That [01:09:00] those jaws. Yeah. Got it. Um,

Ellen: yeah. Yeah, I was going to say also the, like, in terms of calls, apart from the earthquake, the actual call that led to the Ocean’s 9-1-1 heist thing.

Alice: I was about to say the same thing, yeah.

Ellen: That was one of their best ones,

Alice: I thought. The call is good, yeah. And like, with the poor guy stuck in the armored truck.

Yeah. Um. And like yelling, yelling, like, at Buck asking things and Buck’s just, okay, and all of a sudden it’s like, what the fuck?

Ellen: And then the team just pulling out all the drills and stuff. And you’re just like, where did they get that from?

Alice: And then, um, and then the, the maggot call as well. Cause it’s another like fantastic Buck moment. Maggot!

Bex: Yeah, that one’s good.

Ellen: And it’s, that’s one of the ones that has like, no bearing on the rest of the episode at all. Like, absolutely no relation to what is happening else in that episode, apart [01:10:00] from the theme.

Bex: Yes, apart from the fact that she says the title of the episode in her speech to the camera.

Yeah. Otherwise, it’s just completely random that she has a botfly in her face.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah.

Alice: It’s just so gross that it’s one of those ones that it’s like, okay, this is definitely based in some sort of real life.

Bex: I think bot flies are pretty well known to do that though.

Ellen: Oh, I don’t want to think about that.

Bex: Pretty sure I’ve seen that and I think probably every medical drama worth its salt has had some kind of botfly infestation. plotline.

Alice: And the whole, have you been to Central America, or was it Central or South America?

Bex: I think it was both. Have you been to Central or South America? And she’s like, no.

Yeah. I did just come back from Belize.

Alice: Yeah. Okay, cool. That’s what this is. It

Ellen: just reminded me of the, um.

Alice: Yeah, it’s just so stupid.

Ellen: Tapeworm one from season one. It’s just like, [01:11:00] gross factor, but also hilarious.

Alice: It’s great. Like, I like, I really like the emergencies that are just so, like, either really stupid or, like, really gross. Like, you know, the tapeworm, the maggot, and yeah, the shark is just, like, Why? And then the, yeah. And then like the guy got bitten and they’re just like, how did you get bit? Okay. Whatever.

Like moving on. He’s like, don’t hurt her, don’t hurt her. It’s like, we’re not, okay, it’s fine. We’ll get her to the water. It’s all good.

Ellen: The other one I was thinking of was, um, the, the beauty pageant call that they all went to high.

Bex: The teeny tiny little ladies. Yeah. So tiny.

Alice: We’re everywhere.

Ellen: So silly.

Bex: Which was actually the woman with the shoe through her.

Alice: Yeah. Yeah, literally she had a [01:12:00] shoe through her face.

Ellen: Yeah, a high heel through her face.

Alice: And she was trying to contact the plastic surgeon,

Ellen: but he was on holidays in the Bahamas or something.

Yeah, this show’s pretty funny sometimes, I guess.

Bex: Yeah, it can be. Yeah.

Alice: Like, honestly, I’m not going to mention which emergency it is, um, because we’re not there yet, but, like, one of my all time favorite emergencies in this show, it’s just so dumb. And when we get there I’ll mention it, but it’s, like, one that I think, I have no idea which episode it’s in, I don’t remember which season it’s in, but, like, it’s one that I think about all the time.

Ellen: It’s stuck in your mind.

Alice: Yeah, and it’s just so dumb, but it’s honestly, like, one of my favorites. emergencies ever in this show because so dumb and I love it so much.

Bex: Now I’m really curious.

Ellen: Well you’ll have to talk about it later because I don’t want to know [01:13:00] yet.

Are you typing?

Bex: Oh yeah, okay. It’s actually just, she like literally just dropped it in the group chat.

Alice: No, I dropped it in the, like, not, like the one without Ellen, so yeah. Um, but yeah, just so dumb, but it just sticks with me and it cracks me up every time.

Bex: Yeah, I can see that.

Alice: Cool. So we did get a fuck, marry, kill suggestion from Lucy as well. So we’ve got Fuck, Marry, Kill, Shannon, Josh, and Sal.

Ellen: Oh, God.

Bex: I think that’s almost too obvious.

Alice: Too easy, surely. Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah. But for science, what is your answer?

Bex: For science, you, um, You, you fuck Shannon, you platonically [01:14:00] marry Josh and you kill Sal.

Alice: Oh, see, I was doing it a bit different.

Bex: Oh, okay.

Alice: Yeah. Um, I’d marry Shannon because she deserves to be like in a good marriage for once. Yeah. No offense, Eddie. Um, I’d fuck Josh on a drunken night out and, um, absolutely kill Sal.

Bex: All right. Okay. Ellen.

Ellen: No, I agree with, I agree with Alice. I would, I would, I think that Shannon deserves better.

Bex: See, I don’t know that Shannon wants better. I would rock her world and then send her on her way. Josh, I would marry for the health insurance and taxation reasons, and yeah, I don’t want anything to do with Sal.

Alice: Yeah, yeah, bye Sal.

Um, and then I think the only, like, I think the last thing we’ve got is, [01:15:00] um, what do you think is coming up in Season 3, Ellen?

Ellen: Oh my god, okay, so, I don’t know any of the details at all about Season 3. Um, although I do have an inkling about the disaster that is coming up? And I thought that happened a lot later.

So now I’m like, Ooh, this is happening now. How exciting. Um,

Alice: Are you going to say which one you think it is?

Ellen: No, because I, I, I just, I’m hoping that there are some other people out there who are listening, who are also not trying not to be spoiled yet. Um,

Bex: Okay. Um,

Ellen: I, I have…

Alice: When we get there next week, Ellen will be like, yeah, I totally knew it was this one.

Well, I will because

Ellen: it’ll be in all of the previews and stuff. Like, you know, I’ll be like, oh yeah, okay. Um, everyone who I’ve, a lot of, quite a few people who I’ve spoken to is saying, saying that I’m up to season three. They’re like, Oh, season three. Yeah. Yeah. So I’m, I’m expecting [01:16:00] big things.

Bex: Oh no.

Ellen: Specifically of, um, Buck and Eddie.

Bex: I think that sometimes when you, like, people have those kind of reactions and it, it, it like rises. No, that’s, that’s not English. Damn, you’d think I was a writer or something. Um.

Alice: Maybe I don’t want you to help me with that, Bex.

Bex: Elevates your expectations? Yeah. Increase, um. to the point where reality just can’t match it. But I honestly do think that whatever you’re expecting, season three will do it.

Ellen: Okay. Yeah. I mean, the last time I really had extremely high expectations and then we got like the Supernatural finale. So, you know, I, Oh no. So I’ll just. [01:17:00] keep my expectations to myself for now until I

Bex: No, that’s fair enough.

Ellen: Um, but no, I’m looking forward to getting into it.

Alice: So going from where we left off season three to, um, so, I mean, season two, whatever season we’re on, um, so we’ve got Bobby and Athena have just got married.

Ellen: Oh yeah, they randomly got married. I was sort of wondering if they would, um, like, I was surprised that they did that.

Like they just, I guess at the end of the episode, they were in a place where they were like, why do we want to wait? Like, we don’t want to wait any longer for this. Like we, we didn’t really get a chance to talk about Bathena at all. Really? Did we yet? Um, but I kind of expected them to either have a wedding at the end of the season, like a proper one where they were all there and they had it in like the firehouse or something, you know, like a.

a big deal. Um, or wait until season three at least. [01:18:00] But no, they just had a small one with the family, which worked fine for the, the way the episode ended, I guess. But you know, it was a, it was less of a deal than I thought it was going to be, you know?

Alice: Yeah, fair. We also had Maddie and Chim deciding to give them, give it a shot.

Yeah. Did anything happen with Hen at the end?

Ellen: Uh, they were talking about trying for another kid.

Alice: Yes, Hen and Karen are thinking about adding to their family. And obviously Eddie just lost Shannon. And Buck was left on a bit of an uncertain note, like he’s got an apartment now.

Bex: Does he have a job? Or does he have the job that he wants?

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Not being able to return to…

Alice: Um, he, like, he needs another surgery, um, and he doesn’t know if he’ll be back. So, do you have any, like, predictions on what’s coming up in the first, like, half, I [01:19:00] guess?

Ellen: Well, I think, um, Buck is going to go back to work as a firefighter. That’s an obvious one.

I suspect that the, the, um, Hen and Karen adding to, potentially adding to their family may end up to be a point of tension. I don’t, I get that impression from their chat, like I didn’t, I don’t know what’s going to happen with them in that regard. Um, but yeah, that seemed like a bit of a tense kind of discussion, maybe.

Um, maybe it’s just the way they played it, but yeah. What else? Chim and Maddie. I know they’re together forever. They’re wonderful. I love them. So, yay for them. I’m assuming there’ll be some more, um, ups and downs with them through, through the next couple of seasons. But, you know, they’re great. So I’m glad they’ve decided to give it another go.

They need it. They deserve it.

Who did I leave out? [01:20:00] Eddie. I don’t know. I don’t know what Eddie’s doing. I don’t think Eddie knows what he’s doing.

Alice: No, no one knows what Eddie’s doing. We’re in Season 8 and no one knows what Eddie’s doing.

Ellen: He gets a moustache at some point. It’s like, I don’t know. Some people love it, some people hate it. So, I don’t know. Who knows?

Bex: He gets a moustache because he’s not allowed to have a beard.

Ellen: The Eddie Begins episode is in season three, right?

Bex: Yes, we get Eddie begins, and Athena begins, we get two this season.

Ellen: Okay.

Bex: Which, I mean, we kind of already have an inkling of Athena’s backstory.

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: I think it’s vaguely mentioned, like her mum brings it up.

Bex: Not vaguely mentioned, doesn’t she sit down and tell Hayden about it?

Ellen: Yeah, she does, she explains.

Bex: In that, um, the ghost, the ghost that called 9-1-1 episode. And she got really invested on figuring out who the bones were.

Oh [01:21:00] yeah, true.

Ellen: Yeah, she tells Hen all about the girl that went missing.

Bex: There was a bit of exposition in that episode about it. Okay, well we’ve taken notes, and we will be comparing your thoughts.

Alice: Did we? Um, if you’ve got the transcript still up, what were the, what were the theories for season two from season one?

Ah, let’s have a look.

Ellen: It’s so hard to give theories like that without revealing like things that I actually know that are going to happen.

Alice: Yeah, but you don’t know when things are going to happen.

Bex: Nope. She dodged it.

Ellen: Hey. Oh. Thanks past me.

Alice: We got you this time.

Ellen: I did just think that, um, mentioning Athena, that we went a little bit more, uh, like in the first season, I think they were really leaning on their, you know, famous stars.

Like there was a lot more Bobby and Athena, not together at that point, but like [01:22:00] they were in everything a lot more. This season they kind of padded it out with the ensemble cast a lot more. So even though we did have quite a bit of Bobby and Athena stuff, it didn’t. so much feel like it was the Bobby and Athena show anymore.

Does that make sense?

Bex: I guess that goes to the talking about the writers and the showrunners feeling more secure in the second season. So yeah, first season they probably were very heavily focusing on Angela Bassett and Peter Krause and Connie Britton because they were the major drawcards. They were the named stars.

They were the ones that, oh, Angela Bassett’s in that, yeah, I’m going to watch this. But I think once they had established and they got their audience, they went, okay, cool, we sucked everybody in with Angela Bassett, now let’s show them some Oliver Stark. Or let’s let Aisha spread her wings a little bit. Or let’s give Kenny a chance to shine.

Alice: [01:23:00] I’ve got to say, it’s interesting from my perspective, because I had no idea who Peter Krause was. But, like, knew Kenneth Troy from Marvel, and the only thing I knew Angela Bassett from was, um, Black Panther. Yeah, literally. So, like, I came in and I was just like, who the fuck is Bobby? Like, I had no idea what he looked like, had no idea why he was there.

Everyone’s like, oh, he’s a big star. And I’m like, from what? Like, who is this guy?

Bex: Oh, see, now, I knew Peter. I’d watched multiple shows with Peter.

Alice: Oh, most people do, yeah. Yeah. But, like, clearly he just was not on, like, in any of the shows that I’ve watched. To be fair, all I’ve really watched is Supernatural and Marvel, so, like, um

Ellen: Well, there’s plenty of both of them.

Alice: But Kenny’s in this, like, why is no one obsessed with it? Like, why is Yeah. And then, um, obviously when Jennifer Love Hewitt joined, I, um, I knew her from Ghost Whisperer, so

Ellen: Yeah, well, she gets a lot more focus in this season too, obviously. I mean, yeah, being a big name.

Bex: Which I think, [01:24:00] I wonder if that was their attempt to bring in a younger audience, because Angela and Peter and Connie were probably bringing, like, I’m aging myself here, but they were bringing in the 30 and 40 year olds, an older audience.

And then maybe they thought…

Alice: I was going to say older, because I’m in my 30s and I have no idea who Connie Britton is either. Okay,

Bex: so, yeah, so, like, I’m in my 40s, so, yes, I had watched, um, I had watched, um, Connie and Peter in, and Angela in shows and movies. So I knew who they were. So I’m wondering whether the show went, well, we need to bring in a younger audience to be able to sustain our audience number.

So let’s bring in someone like Jennifer Love Hewitt who, like, I would also know from, say, Party of Five, but then you’ve also got, like, the Ghost Whisperer generation.

Alice: And, and we’ll throw in, um, that guy from Step Up 4 as well.

Ellen: Who?

Bex: Yeah, I had no [01:25:00] idea who he was. We had this discussion, I have no idea about any of the Step Up movies.

Alice: No. Yeah, I think we need like a hiatus episode where we just watch random things.

Ellen: That we haven’t each seen, so we can discuss them.

Alice: Mind you, Ryan Guzman has the weirdest digital footprint. There’s a clip of him interviewing Britney Spears at one point.

Ellen: He’s been in a lot of music videos, right? Yeah. Like dancing.

Bex: Well, he was a, he was a dancer.

Alice: No, well he wasn’t, he wasn’t a dancer. He was hired for Step Up four and had to learn to dance. He’s not a dancer.

Ellen: Oh.

Alice: Which is why it’s so funny.

Bex: Huh? So once again, they just looked at him and went, well you are pretty,

Alice: literally. Yeah. Okay. You’ll do . Uh, um, yeah, was a bit obsessed with Step Up for a bit there.

Ellen: So we had a, a little bit more feedback for this week, um, or for this season that actually just came in since the last episode that we [01:26:00] did on the season finale.

Alice: Yeah, through Spotify, which is always exciting.

Ellen: Yeah, you can go in, like, through Spotify, you can comment on each of the episodes that are on there.

So, if I, if I take a few days to respond to those comments, it’s because I, I don’t actually get any notification that they’re there. I actually log into Spotify and find them. So, but, but I love when I do log in and there’s the comments there, I’m like, Oh my God, people are listening. Anyway, um, Kiera, thank you very much, uh, for sending in a comment about, um, Athena’s wedding dress.

We were, we were kind of a little bit, I don’t know, maybe, well, I guess we were critical of the dress. We were, we were confused mostly, weren’t we? In the last episode.

Alice: A little bit, yeah. Um, but no, Kiera actually linked the the dress itself, which, uh, doesn’t look like it’s available anymore, but it’s cool to see that it has a like, page, I [01:27:00] guess?

Ellen: Yeah, it’s one of those worn on TV, websites where they look up what people are wearing, like where they post about, um, outfits that people have worn on TV and where you can get them if you’re so inclined. So yes, turns out this dress does actually have black straps underneath the white or creamy kind of off the shoulder kind of sleeve.

I mean, no, I mean, long story short, Angela Bassett looks amazing in it, as she always does. We just wanted to make sure we reiterated that.

Alice: She’d look amazing in a paper bag. Let’s be real.

Ellen: Yeah, absolutely amazing. Um, but yeah, we’re just, we were just a bit confused about the dress, but yeah, it turns out that there’s supposed to be what the dress looks like.

So, okay.

Alice: Yeah. Thank you so much, Kiera, for your, um, for your feedback.

Ellen: Yes. Thank you.

Alice: Yeah, I also, just before we wrap up as well, I’m going to give a [01:28:00] possibly controversial opinion.

Ellen: Oh, here we go.

Alice: I thought,

Bex: I’m bracing myself.

Alice: I thought that they rushed Bathena. I like Bathena together, but I would have preferred to see their relationship.

Like we got their, pretty much their first date, and then we cut to season two and they were like very much a couple. Yeah.

Bex: See, I think I’m okay with that aspect of it because there was a time jump between the end of season one and the end of season two. I do agree with you in that there was no burn. Yes.

It was like he hugged her hello in one episode and then five episodes later he’s making googly eyes at her. And you can kind of retrospectively go, well, it started when he handed her his cock. And so he’s possibly been like covertly [01:29:00] making eyes at her for like five years. And it’s only at the end of season one that he finally decides, well, I like this woman enough that I’m going to give up my suicide plan and, you know, go for it.

Alice: Yeah, I just like, cause as I said, I like Bathena now. I just wish, there was more of a slow burn because when I first watched the show, like, obviously I was binging as well. So I finished season one and then went immediately to season two and was like, Oh,

Bex: they’re like together now.

Alice: Together, together now.

Whereas we got that more with Maddie and Chimney, where like you see them, like they have one episode where Maddie is like, Oh, he’s really cute. And then we see it from Buck’s point of view where he’s just like, hang on, when have you guys been hanging out? And like, you get sort of like They’ve had this burn where they’ve been going to dinners together, going to karaoke together, and Buck’s just like, wait a minute, are you guys dating?

And they’re like, no. Um, and then it takes until the end of the season for them to actually jump in.

Ellen: Once again, Buck is the audience stand in.

Alice: Literally, it’s so good, but they, [01:30:00] they do it really well with, um, Madney, and I think that’s why Madney are my favorite couple on the show. Because you do see their growth together and you see that slow burn.

Bex: Which again, I guess I could go back to season two. They had security, they had time. Season one, they got to the end of that run and went, shit, we actually get to do a second season. We need to establish some stuff. So we’re just gonna chuck it all in the last episode. We’re suddenly gonna have a suicidal character be okay with living a little bit longer so that he can have this romance because the show needs romance because we haven’t had any real romance for the old people, so.

Ellen: Yeah. Well, even they didn’t really get We didn’t, we sort of skipped over their romance, like

Bex: Yeah, that’s what I meant. Yeah,

Ellen: exactly. Yeah, that’s right. You said that earlier, but like Yeah. Yeah, we didn’t see any of their And we also, like, even though in [01:31:00] this season we got, um, we saw Bobby in his past, um, like re getting back into drinking and whatever again. And we got that one episode like “Dosed” where he did, um, you know, take drugs again by accident, I guess, and then was not okay about it after. But that’s the last we hear of that at all. It’s just done with. They don’t discuss it anymore.

Alice: Yeah. Bobby literally goes from suicidal in a church to basically like skipping down the road.

Ellen: He was excited to plan his wedding. Which is great. I’m glad that he was able to do that, but it’s often a lot harder than that for people, I think.

Bex: I think that ties into what we were saying about Maddie.

Alice: And like, Athena just got divorced.

Bex: Yeah, like, I think the show has this really bad habit of bringing up traumatic storylines and traumatic plot points for the drama and then dropping them as soon as [01:32:00] they’re difficult and not fun to watch anymore.

Ellen: We shouldn’t be We should be used to this because it happened in Supernatural all the time. Like those guys went through some like really horrible shit, like all the time.

Bex: But I think we would be, if we were doing a podcast about, about Supernatural and we were watching it episode by episode, we would also be going, Hey, why has nobody brought up that Sam spent all this time in hell?

Ellen: Yeah, there were a lot of things.

Alice: Yeah, Monster of the Week definitely, just like, um, what are they, like, remember that time that everyone was, like, really upset about this, and then just stopped caring?

Ellen: And then suddenly, we never mention it again? Yeah.

Bex: But I think with 9-1-1, it’s possibly, it hurts a little bit more, because at least with Supernatural, we were aware how shit the writer’s room was.

And we were well aware. Yeah, that was a CW show, so we were well aware of like the revolving door of showrunners and how the show ebbed and fell depending on who was in charge and that, you know, the writers were not playing nicely together. But 9-1-1 seems [01:33:00] to have a more cohesive, at this point anyway, it has a, a show runner who seems to have a grip on the, on the writer’s room.

The writer’s room seem to be working together, so when they do go for like go for broke with a good storyline, and do it well, and then just drop it. It hurts that little bit more, because you know that they could have done it better.

Alice: I wonder how much is the network, because I’ve heard like a lot of things like Tim Minear apparently was gunning for and the network were just like, no, we’re not doing that.

Bex: Oh, yeah. Again, we also have to remember it is a network. It is a serial network television show. It’s not a streaming service. Um, it’s not cable, so they are sort of restricted in what they can do.

Alice: So yeah, I wonder if the network were just like, Yeah, you’ve got to get the two stars together. And they were like, okay, I guess.

Ellen: It’s just, it’s just Athena’s power. She fixed him.

Alice: I wish we’d had a bit more.

Ellen: She’s just so amazing.

Bex: Maybe we’re all just so used to like, the deep [01:34:00] emotional depths of fan fiction that we, we expect that kind of emotional intelligence in everything.

Alice: They do it so well with Madney though.

Bex: But I wonder how much of that was pushed by Jennifer Love Hewitt because it’s like, it’s not a secret that she said she would only do that storyline if Brian Hallisey played Doug. So she knew what that storyline was going into it. I’m wondering, , like, Again, she said, I don’t want Eddie to be Maddie’s love interest.

I want Chim to be Maddie’s love interest. I’m wondering how much she went in going, if we’re doing this storyline, if this is Maddie, I want A, B, C, D, and E. And she pushed hard for her storyline, um, and would only agree to do it if it worked the way that it did. Because she had that much respect for doing that storyline correctly because it is such an important storyline.

Whereas maybe the other cast [01:35:00] members can’t do that. Don’t have that opportunity.

Ellen: Well, thank you, Jennifer Love Hewitt, if you’re listening. Um, you did a great job.

Alice: I’m sure she is. Tunes in every week. It’s fine.

Ellen: You’re amazing. Thank you.

Alice: We’re excited for your Christmas movie.

Bex: Do you think we have wrapped up season two enough?

Do we need to wrap it up any tighter?

Alice: I think it’s in a nice little bow.

Ellen: I mean, to be honest, it, like, it did end on a nice little wrapped up moment. Like, the end, the, I don’t think it was an episode that could have finished the whole, like, if the, if the series had ended there, that would have been very unfulfilling.

But it’s not a cliffhanger, is what I mean. Like, there’s no huge reveal right at the end. Like, obviously we know that Buck is sort of injured and You know, you know, on, in an uncertain place, but

Alice: yeah, but he’s not, he’s not still under the truck.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He’s in [01:36:00] a place where he’s okay. Everyone else is, is doing all right at the moment.

Um, Eddie’s just been made like a full firefighter

Alice: and a widow.

Ellen: Yeah. Uh, that’s, that’s not a happy thing, but you know, it’s an ending, I suppose. Um, you know, it’s not like some series, like, especially Supernatural, you’d always end the The last thing on the cliffhanger. So you’re sitting there through the whole hiatus just going what the hell is gonna happen?

But yeah,

Alice: I still remember because I was watching live back then. I still remember at the end of season 3.

Ellen: Oh god, that was a long time ago. Season 3? When Dean went to hell.

Alice: Yeah, so I watched live from one to six and then halfway through six, I dropped off until the whole show was out. Um, but yeah, the, it was insane because we were so convinced that they were gonna get out of the deal somehow and then Dean died and we’re like, Huh?

Yeah. Um, and none of us [01:37:00] ever guessed that it was gonna be Angels and what Castiel would bring to the show.

Bex: That’s cause Kripke was adamant that he wasn’t gonna do Angels.

Alice: Yeah, he said, there were so many interviews where he’s just like, oh, you know, we don’t want to get that religious. We don’t want to bring in angels.

Bex: We don’t want to get that religious. Next minute.

Ellen: Then Misha Collins walked in and he went, you know what, the thing about angels is that I think we need them.

Bex: And if we’re going to have angels, I guess we better have God as well.

Alice: But yeah, that, like that moment where Dean like is in, it’s burned into my brain forever and I was like 14 and Dean like hanging by the hooks in hell and, and then it just ends and we’re like, huh?

Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah. It’s a great finale. That one.

Alice: And we had to wait months, months.

Ellen: Speaking of a show that has to escalate every single season. Yep. [01:38:00] And it had a whole 15 seasons, oh gosh. Anyway, no, I think we’ve wrapped up season 2 pretty well.

So, season 3, um, what have we got coming up in the beginning?

Bex: Uh, it says, Athena’s routine traffic stop reveals a shocking kidnapping on the all new season premiere of 9-1-1. Athena enlists the 118’s help when a teenager speeds out of control on the freeway. Meanwhile, a routine traffic stop uncovers a shocking kidnapping, and Buck struggles with his recovery.

Ellen: Okay, so, so far it sounds like a standard episode, nothing out of the ordinary.

Bex: I suppose we should get the triggers. That, is that Nikki has so carefully put together for us?

Alice: Yeah, love Nikki.

Bex: Uh, so, trigger warnings for the premiere of Season 3 is we [01:39:00] have An out of control car, a child driving an out of control car, claustrophobia, high speed pursuit, kidnapping, a pregnant woman and baby at threat, um, gore, which is like standard just for blood, um, stabbing, and a natural disaster.

Ellen: Interesting. That’s a lot, actually, in one episode.

Bex: I think, I will say that a lot of those triggers relate to like, Multiple triggers relate to single storylines. So it’s not like every single trigger is a storyline. There’s one storyline that has a lot of triggers that need to cover it.

Ellen: Okay. So like we obviously , by the time you’re hearing this, it’s too late for, um, you to send feedback into us for us to read out in this episode, but if you have thoughts about season two, we would still love to hear them.

Um, you can put them in a comment on our website, or you can put a comment [01:40:00] in Spotify, or you can send us email, or you can contact us on social media as well. All of the information on how to get in contact with us. It’s on our website, which is thatweewooshow.com

Alice: We have a blue sky now.

Ellen: We’re on blue sky. Yeah. I should mention that. I think the entire kind of fandom in general community of, you know, people who dislike X Twitter, are moving over to blue sky, it seems like. So we are also there and come and follow us at thatweewooshow there too. Thank you so much to everyone who sent us feedback to read out in this episode.

Alice: Yes. Thank you so much to Nikki, Birdie, Mads, Lucy, Bexism and Beckett. Thank you. We really appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

Ellen: We’ll talk to you next time about episode one of the season three, which is titled “Kids Today”. See you then.

Bex: Bye.

Alice: Bye.

Ellen: [01:41:00] (speaking over outro music) 9-1-1 is a fictional show, but many of the situations portrayed happen in the real world too. If any of the topics we’ve discussed in this episode have affected you, please know you’re not alone. You can call or text numbers in your country for help. Just Google crisis support in your location to find out the number.

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

[first outtake]

Alice: Why are there so many bugs in my room?

Ellen: No, I don’t want any pictures of beetles today, okay?

Alice: Pretty sure that was a video, Ellen.

Ellen: Oh yeah, it was.

Alice: But no, you know the little tiny flying guys?

Ellen: Fruit flies?

Alice: I don’t think they’re fruit flies.

Bex: We don’t have fruit flies in this country. [01:42:00]

Alice: Yeah, we do.

Ellen: Yeah, we do. I’ve got heaps of them in my house, in my, in my kitchen at the moment.

Alice: Yeah, that’s why we have um, border patrol, where you’ve got to dump the fruit.

Bex: I thought we had that so that we didn’t get fruit flies in the country.

Alice: No, that would be just so that it doesn’t get, like, that’d just be at the airports. This is like at the border when you’re driving.

Ellen: In Queensland.

Bex: I can’t drive over a border.

Ellen: You can’t drive over a border.

Alice: No, maybe they don’t have them in Tasmania, but um. But we definitely have fruit flies in the mainland.

Ellen: I thought that was just a Queensland thing because we don’t want, like, banana diseases. But no, fruit flies, we definitely have fruit flies up here. I had like a plague of them in my kitchen, like, during winter and I had to

Bex: Oh no, those are, those are vinegar flies. They’re not fruit flies, they’re vinegar flies.

Ellen: Okay, are they not? Little flies that eat the fruit?

Bex: They are little flies and they are attracted to the fermentation from the fruit, but they’re not fruit flies [01:43:00] because they’ll, they show up like if you open your compost bin and all the flies come out, that’s the same kind of fly.

Alice: Yeah, no, according to agriculture. gov. au, we definitely have fruit flies. Okay. They’re just not in Tasmania. There’s like a specifically queen called Queensland fruit fly.

Ellen: Oh, yay. Another thing that we have.

Alice: But it looks like it’s not in South Australia, which would be why the, um, why you’ve got to dump it at the border.

Ellen: All right. Okay. Ah, okay. That can go in an outtake

Alice: Learn about fruit flies in Australia. It’s like bumblebees. I was complaining about how Tasmania has bumblebees and we don’t. And Lucy’s just like, we have bumblebees. And I’m like, Lucy, if you see a bumblebee, please call the government because we’re not supposed to have bumblebees on the mainland.

Ellen: She has bumblebees?

Alice: Apparently. And I’m like, you’re not [01:44:00] supposed to.

Ellen: We have big bees, like, sometimes.

Alice: Yeah, we have native bees, but they’re not bumblebees.

Ellen: Native bees are really tiny. I’ve got a native beehive in my backyard.

Alice: Oh, that’s cool.

Ellen: They’re really little.

Bex: Yeah, native bees are tiny though. We have the big, the big fuzzy butt bumblebees down here.

Alice: Yeah. They’re awesome.

Ellen: They’re so cool. I, the first time I saw one of those in England, I was so excited. I’m like, bumblebee, look at it, it’s huge, it’s so fuzzy, it’s so cute.

Alice: Um, yeah, when we went to Tasmania, literally the first night we like stayed at just like a random like bed and breakfast thing, um, and, um, Yeah, we were outside and there was a bumblebee on the and I lost my shit.

I was just like, what? Why is there a bumblebee here? Like, what? We don’t have them in Australia. What the hell is going on? And my friend who like, obviously lives in Tasmania, um, was like, oh no, they’re everywhere here. And I was like, what?

Bex: Yeah.

Ellen: Oh, they’ve got lots of wombats. You guys have got lots of wombats down there too, right?

Bex: Uh, on Cradle Mountain? Yeah. We don’t [01:45:00] tend to have that many. We’ve got wobblies.

Ellen: Oh yeah. Wobblies are everywhere.

Bex: Wobblies and paddy melons.

Ellen: Mm hmm.