1.09: Trapped

Welcome to That Weewoo Show: a podcast where Ellen, Bex and Alice watch and discuss every episode of ABC’s TV show, 9-1-1.

In this episode we discuss the ninth episode of 9-1-1, titled “Trapped”.

The first responders rush to save a homeless man crushed in a garbage truck, a mother and son in a crashed elevator and extreme hoarders entombed in their house.

Content warnings for episode 1.09:

A man trapped in a garbage compactor at threat of being crushed, elevator malfunction, threat of drowning, hoarders, open fracture, minor character death.

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Episode Transcript

Ellen: [00:00:00] Welcome back to That Wee Woo Show, a podcast where we watch and discuss episodes of ABC show 9-1-1. I’m Ellen.

Alice: I’m Alice.

Bex: And I’m Bex.

Ellen: Thanks very much to everyone who has been listening to our episodes and has shared our social media posts. And also a big thank you to everyone who has rated us on Spotify and Apple podcasts.

Alice: And thank you, Kate, for your feedback on our episode two episodes ago, “Full Moon, (Creepy AF)”. Kate is a real life firefighter and enjoyed the yoga delivery scene. She confirmed that they do hate full moons in EMS. And while Bobby and Buck aren’t paramedics, they probably would have had a life pack or a ZOLL, Z-O-L-L with a fetal [00:01:00] heart monitor that they could have used, but it doesn’t look as cinematic as badly checking vitals with a stethoscope. So shout out, Kate.

Ellen: Thank you!

Alice: So last week on 9-1-1, a man was shot by a tree in a series of flashbacks within flashbacks. Bobby’s blood saved some babies in record time. Athena realized it was time to let Michael go. And a tiger was the goodest girl. Buck and Abby who?

Bex: In this episode, we are going to discuss the season one, episode nine titled “Trapped”, which first aired on March 14 in 2018. And the official summary describes the episode as this: the first responders race to help a homeless man crushed in a garbage truck, a mother and son in a crashed elevator and extreme hoarders entombed in their house. Meanwhile, Athena jumps into the dating pool as Buck and Abby’s relationship is tested by her ailing mother.

And for those of you who are a little bit squeamish, here [00:02:00] are your content warnings for this episode. We have a man trapped in a garbage compactor at threat of being crushed. We have an elevator malfunction, threat of drowning, hoarders. We have an open fracture shown on and a minor character death.

Ellen: Yep. Because this episode is called “Trapped”, of course, as per all the other episodes in this season, every musical number and scene involves someone being trapped or mentioning being trapped. Of course. So we open this episode with “Trapped” by Bruce Springsteen as Abby does a voiceover and she explains how people are resilient and we soldier on and it might feel like the world is conspiring against us, but how do we break the cycle?

And while all the while, as this music is playing, we have a homeless man who [00:03:00] has been sleeping in a bus stop and the police kind of tell him to move along. So he moves along the street. It starts raining. So he climbs into a dumpster and goes to sleep.

Bex: Can I just add the bus shelter that the guy is sleeping at has a horror movie poster on the side of it for a movie called Jinn, which doesn’t exist in real life. But the tagline for the movie is, “Don’t let the (something) out of the house.” So even the fake horror movie posters are trapped in this episode.

Ellen: Oh, well spotted.

Bex: I saw the poster and went, Oh, that movie looks really good. Only to find that it doesn’t exist. So, as the the boss declares that he’s trapped, we cut to morning in Los Angeles, and the man who was sleeping in the dumpster wakes to [00:04:00] loud mechanical and metal clanging noises, and his dumpster is moving.

It’s been picked up by the garbage truck and he is being emptied into the back of the compactor. And the truck driver is wearing ear protectors and he can’t hear the man screaming for him to stop.

Alice: Scary shit.

Bex: Yeah.

Ellen: And we go straight to a 9-1-1 call. Yeah, this time this time, not Abby. Like, I don’t know how she’s not answering every call this episode, but no, she’s not there.

But it’s from the man himself in the, in the truck. He’s, he’s trapped in a garbage truck. He can’t move. So the 9-1-1 caller, like, you know, operator says that she’s going to send the nearest police car. So.

Bex: which then we cut to a fire truck. Which, okay, fine. You’re saying like, you’re going to send police, but it’s actually send fire. Fine.

Alice: Just send everyone.

Bex: So we get the engine 118 racing down the street, [00:05:00] lights and sirens going, with the rescue ambulance right behind it. And even though both vehicles are making a hell of a lot of noise, the garbage truck is not moving. And Hen pulls down the radio to ask the the members of the 118 and the engine truck, “What the hell is this dude’s problem?”

I don’t know. And Buck is driving the engine’s truck. Buck is driving! Buck is driving. Bobby is riding shotgun. And Buck hears Hen’s message and turns to Bobby and says, “Seriously, he doesn’t hear us?” Which, yeah, I I don’t know, I hear lights and sirens and assuming that I’m not having, I don’t have a k pop song playing, I usually immediately realize that there’s something going on behind me and I’m frantically looking around to see where I can pull off safely.

Ellen: I mean sirens are designed to be heard over, over engine noises.

Alice: They’re so loud.

Ellen: [00:06:00] Yes, and he’s honking too, it’s not like it’s just the, just the sirens.

Alice: I guess not having like, any vision in the back doesn’t help, but surely.

Ellen: Maybe he just hasn’t bothered taking off his ear things.

Alice: Yeah, that too. So Bobby tells Buck that they’re gonna have to get in front of him, which, of course, Buck loves.

Speeds up, cuts the garbage truck off, which forces him to stop.

Bex: And the garbo gets out and he’s all like, “What the hell, guys?” And Bobby tells him that he has a man trapped inside his compactor and the driver says that’s impossible because he hasn’t picked up any garbage yet.

Alice: They have the wrong truck.

Bex: They suddenly realize they have the wrong truck.

Ellen: Buck’s like, Oh, thank you. You’re doing a great job. Carry on. And they back away.

Alice: Buck is so cute.

Ellen: He is. He’s adorable. And then Bobby’s like, “where the hell is this garbage truck?” but it’s okay because Athena is on it. [00:07:00] I think the truck’s already stopped, right? When she pulls up and “turn off the compactor.” Yeah, that’s right. The guy’s out there turning the compactor on and she’s like, “turn it off. Turn it off. You got a guy inside.” And the garbo in this case is like, “How the hell was I supposed to know you were sleeping in the dumpster?” Like, good point, buddy.

Bex: Yeah. He’s so worried that he’s done something wrong. And Athena’s very quick to reassure him. “You’ve done nothing wrong. But we do need you to stop the truck so we can get this guy out.” We do have our first continuity or continuity fuck up of the episode in that Bobby and Buck are driving Engine 118, but Bobby identifies himself as driving Truck 118.

And I’m being very pedantic, but the truck is the ladder truck. And that’s not what they’re driving in this episode.

Ellen: I thought they were all at 118.

Bex: I’m gonna get so nitpicky about which vehicle they’re driving when. You’re gonna get so sick of me by the end of this episode.

Alice: [00:08:00] You should, because Bobby also gets really nitpicky, so.

Ellen: Oh, I just assumed that all the trucks in there were labelled 118, because that’s their

Bex: They are, they are all the 118, but if you are driving the ladder truck, that is T118, that’s truck 118. And if you’re driving the engine truck, which is the one with all the hoses and the pumps, that’s engine 118.

Ellen: Geez, okay.

Alice: Oh, you’ll get there. Bobby’s very specific about which, like, do not call the engine a truck.

Ellen: Oh, right. Except in this case.

Alice: Except in this case.  

Bex: They have very different functions when it comes to attending scenes. But I’m guessing that they wrote the script and then nobody thought to double check, Hey, which vehicle did we actually call onto the set today?

Alice: Yeah! (laughs)

Bex: So that’s continuity’s fuck up for that one. Anyway, so they pull the engine truck up to Athena’s location [00:09:00] And there’s kind of, and Hen has found the ladder to the truck and she’s climbed up to start searching the compactor for their victim.

Ellen: Yeah, she seems to be in a hurry.

Bex: I do love the garbage guy’s just like, damn, look at her go!

And she just kind of scurries up the ladder. Yeah, you’re barking up the wrong tree there, dude. Number one, she’s gay. Number two, she’s married.

Alice: Bobby asks, like, the technical questions, like, how much pressure does the compactor under operate under? And the Garbo guesses 2, 000 PSI.

Bex: He’s close. It’s about 27, 2700 PSI.

Alice: Mm-Hmm. Buck helpfully being the voice of the audience puts that in context and tells us that that would crush a car. So it’s not looking good for the poor man. I do

Bex: like that. After hen flies up the ladder, buck climbs up after her and [00:10:00] sort of halfway up, he makes a, a remark that it stinks, but then follows it up with, and people say we are heroes.

Alice: Yeah. He’s so respectful of garbage people in this.

Bex: Yeah. You don’t want to piss off the garbage guys. God, no.

Ellen: Yeah, that’s an essential job.

Bex: Apparently they are paid more than almost every other sort of minimum wage job in the U. S.

Ellen: Well, they, they deserve it, I mean.

Bex: They definitely do.

Ellen: Yeah. And then after they start, after Hen starts lobbing rubbish down from the top of the truck Bobby says to Athena, because they’re both standing on the ground still.

He’s like, “what’s with her?” Because he knows Athena’s her buddy, I guess. But Athena’s like, I don’t know, but if I were you, I’d stay out of her way.

Bex: I’m going to assume that Karen is still at her parents with Denny.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: [00:11:00] Athena’s not in the, and so Hen is not in the best mood.

Alice: God, no. So Chim and Bobby both jump in as well.

Ellen: Yeah, Buck helpfully gives us a little more exposition in that he asks why has he got a cell phone if he’s sleeping in a dumpster. But Chim explains they give them to the homeless as part of the Lifeline program to keep them connected to their family.

Bex: Here’s the thing. You can, cell phones are not that expensive.

You can afford a cell phone and still not afford to be able to rent or buy a house.

Alice: Especially in a capital city, like LA is expensive.

Bex: There’s this, I think, conception that being homeless means that you have absolutely no money. And while for some people, I’m sure that’s true for a lot of homeless people, it’s, they have some money, enough to survive, but not enough [00:12:00] to actually secure permanent housing because the housing market is absolutely insane or there are other reasons that preclude them from renting or purchasing.

So they can afford to have cell phones, they can afford like a gym membership so they can go and shower, they can rent a P. O. box so they’ve got somewhere to get their mail sent. But they’re still sleeping on the street, sleeping in their car, couch surfing. Staying in shelters.

Alice: Yeah, even the, like, the start when the, the poor guy’s trying to sleep on the bench and the cops come and, like, honk at him and tell him to move along. It just makes me so mad.

Bex: Yeah.

Alice: Because, like, he’s literally just sleeping. What’s he doing wrong?

Bex: It’s the keep the streets clean initiative. Yeah. Anyway Hen finds the guy. She finds a foot.

Ellen: Yeah, he’s there. He’s alive. They found a pulse.

Bex: Surprisingly. He is alive. There was someone… I don’t know how it got in there, but there is an armchair in the back of the truck.

[00:13:00] And this guy managed to get wedged underneath and it kind of created this little bubble around him and protected him from the pressure of the compactor.

Ellen: How the hell did that get in there? That doesn’t fit in a wheelie bin. Maybe it was in a dumpster, actually.

Alice: It would have been in a dumpster, yeah.

Ellen: Sorry, I was just thinking about the suburban garbage truck going

Bex: Yeah, no, no, this is like the industrial dumpsters. But again, I don’t The vision of someone like getting this armchair and hauling it into a dumpster. Yeah. Anyway, it works with a scene, it doesn’t work in reality. That’s fine.

Ellen: Well, it protected the guy and kept him alive.

Alice: He wakes up and says, He says it hurts when Bobby asks him if it hurts to breathe. He says he can’t feel his legs but Buck and Hen reassure him. They find out that his name’s Sam. They tell him he’s, he’s gonna get, gonna get him out of here.

Bex: And they do. They strap him to the board and then they use the ladder from the truck.

[00:14:00] Which, I don’t know when the ladder truck arrived, but apparently it did. And they kind of use that as a conveyor belt to lower him down to the paramedics waiting on the ground.

Ellen: Yeah, and somehow in all this time they’ve attracted a crowd of onlookers and they all cheer.

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: I’m not sure where these people are but they’re apparently somewhere where people are.

All right, so we cut to Abby’s place. She’s about to go to work and Carla is there. She’s going to work extra hours and Abby’s just asking her if that’s going to be okay. And Carla’s like, yeah, yeah. And Abby says that, okay, so this is an interesting also timeline inconsistency maybe here. She says “Buck and I are both working in the graveyard shift and then he has a breakfast date planned for us.”

So I assumed this was kind of the next day, but then…

Bex: [00:15:00] But no, it’s because the next scene we get chronologically follows this scene with Sam in the garbage truck.

Ellen: Yeah, because Hen and Athena go out for lunch, so it’s like, so either Abby is working an extremely long, like, 12 hour shift.

Bex: But then that doesn’t work because she and Buck both work in the graveyard shift.

I think this scene is supposed to go before, like, chronologically, it’s meant to happen the day before.

Ellen: Yeah, it must, it must. It must be out of order.

Bex: Or it exists in a parallel universe, sort of running simultaneously with the Abby that’s and the Buck that’s happening. It doesn’t fit chronologically.

Ellen: No, if she hadn’t said that thing about the graveyard shift then that would have been fine. I wouldn’t have even noticed. But because she said that…

Alice: Yeah, she could have just said I have a late shift, like I have a long shift, like I’m saying Buck afterwards.

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: Yes. Yeah. But.

Bex: But they specified that it’s, she is going overnight [00:16:00] because Patricia is going to bed and Carla is staying overnight until the morning.

Ellen: And she’s having a breakfast date. I mean, maybe they were just two separate scenes that got written and then no one even thought about making them work chronologically. I don’t know.

Bex: Okay, so this is continuity second fuck up for these episodes.

Alice: Look, they, they spent all the money on the house later, okay? They didn’t have the money for the continuity.

Ellen: They spent all the money on the hot air balloon. And then couldn’t get it back.

Bex: Yes. And the reason that they’re doing this breakfast date is because she and Buck had a date earlier, previously, that had been cancelled because Carla and Abby ended up in the ER with Patricia.

Yeah.

Ellen: Mm hmm.

Bex: Sorry, it doesn’t sound like Patricia’s doing well.

Alice: [00:17:00] No. But Carla, ever the optimist, is just telling Abby that she hopes this date is just Abby rubbing baby oil on Buck’s biceps.

Ellen: She’s so funny, I love her.

Bex: This episode got kinky!

Alice: It really did.

Ellen: Yep. And then this is, this part is so sad.

So Abby says bye to her mum, like she says, “I’ve got to go to work.” And Patricia just grabs her and says, stay, stay.

Bex: It’s giving trying to leave the five year old at kindergarten and go to work. And, and the kindergartner is just not having it, wants you to stay.

Ellen: And she reaches up to sort of touch Abby on the face and she’s like, “stay, please stay, please stay.”

And Abby’s like, “no, just let go of me, I need to go, you have to stay here,” and then she just like, slaps her in the face. And Abby’s just so shocked, she’s like

Bex: I think what’s worse is that Patricia then just picks up her book and starts reading as if nothing has happened. [00:18:00] Abby is absolutely traumatized, Carla is shocked, and Patricia has forgotten all about it.

Ellen: And Abby doesn’t know what to do, she’s saying, “she’s getting worse, I should, I should stay.” And Carla just says, “no, go, go to work, go to your date. It’s going to be all right.”

Alice: Go be young while you still are. Oh yeah. Abby’s so upset, but she does agree and goes to work.

Ellen: Yeah. So from that, you know, fairly traumatic scene to the next sunshine scene we have, this is the scene with Athena and Hen having lunch together after the rubbish truck incident.

They both look so gorgeous in this scene, honestly. They’re beautiful.

Bex: Although I do call bullshit that the fact that the two of them are sitting there in the diner in full uniform.

Ellen: Yes, and also since they’ve been climbing around in a garbage bin. Like, in a truck.

Bex: Yeah, so they’re both in full uniform, so they’re obviously still on shift.

Yeah, I would have thought, [00:19:00] like, I don’t know what Firefighters and police are like in the US, but I know that here in Australia if you are in that kind of uniform and you’re going out for lunch, you put on a shirt or a jumper over the top of your uniform shirt to hide your badges so that nobody really knows who you are while you’re wandering around the streets.

Otherwise, you’re going to attract unwanted attention. People are going to come up to you and expect you to do your job even though you’re on your break or they’re just going to abuse you.

Alice: Like I’ve worked retail for a long time and I’ve had a lot of police come in just in uniform to shop. It’s like, shouldn’t you be doing things?

Bex: See, whereas if I’m like in the CBD, maybe it’s different because I’m in the CBD where I am. They will put, they will cover up their shirts. So you, if they’re in a uniform, if they’re not playing clothes, they’ll put on something. So you’ll still see their boots, and you’ll still see their pants, and you’ll recognize them as, okay, that’s a cop.

[00:20:00] But you can’t see their, you can’t see their, their shirt with their badges and their markings.

Alice: I wonder if it depends as well what type of person that they are. Like some probably like being recognised.

Bex: True. Yeah, maybe. I don’t know, if you are a paramedic or a firefighter or a police in the US chime in.

Do you go out in public in full uniform or do you try to disguise yourself?  

Alice: While off duty. Cause like, while you’re working you should probably not disguise yourself.

Bex: Yeah, but if you’re like sneaking out on your lunch break.

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: I think while you’re on shift you’re allowed to go and get food though.

Bex: Oh yeah, you’re allowed to go and get shift. But I feel like a lot of them, a lot of first responders would try to cover up the fact that they are still on shift.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: So they don’t get people side eyeing them going like, why aren’t you out fighting fires right now? Why are you standing in line for Subway?

Alice: [00:21:00] Because we have… The ambulance base near work is like pretty much right next to… It’s actually right next door to a Red Rooster. Which is another Australian thing.

Bex: Well that’s convenient.

Alice: But yeah, so they drive the ambulance to Visit McDonald’s next to that and so they drive the ambulance through like, McDonald’s and Henry’s stuff all the time.

Bex: It fits through the drive through?

Alice: I think they park. I can’t, I don’t think I’ve actually seen them drive through, but they, like, I’ve definitely seen, like, the ambulance just, like, there, and them bringing out, like, food.

Bex: Okay so, Hen and Athena are doing a catch up over their, their lives. Athena is asking Hen how it’s going with Karen which Hen does in the most convoluted way possible.

She says to Athena, “she presented me with papers.” [00:22:00] And Athena is incredibly confused and thinks, what, divorce papers? And Hen says, “no, custody papers.” Which, again, it’s like, “wait, she’s suing you for custody of Denny?” But, no, Ava is suing for custody of Denny. She is apparently claiming that she agreed to the adoption under duress, which is a very valid legal argument for getting out of any kind of agreement, basically that you weren’t validly entering into the agreement in the first place.

So it should not be made to stand.

Ellen: So Athena is like wondering whether she has any grounds for this, like if she’s got a chance. And Hen says, well, she did read about a case where they took a five year old boy away from the only family he ever knew and gave him to his birth father. So she’s worried. She is worried.

Alice: Yeah, of course she is.

Ellen: [00:23:00] And Athena just assures her that she’s going to get through it and she has the number of a good lawyer.

Bex: Which then Hen asks “Divorce or custody?”

Ellen: Yeah. And they’re like,

Bex: throwing that back in Athena’s face.

Ellen: But then we sort of get the change of subject back onto Athena because she, she says that divorce should be the last option.

Especially if you have kids. And Hen’s asking if she and Michael are going to have a divorce. And Athena just says, yeah, she’s not sad about it. But she is sad about it, but she knows it’s the right thing to do.

Alice:  Yeah, I think she’s definitely looking forward.

Bex: She’s also excited not to feel so confused all the time.

Ellen: Yes. Yeah,

Alice: she’s excited for the next step, for sure. As we see later.

Bex: Hen asks if she’s found anyone new and Athena starts to sort of play coy, like, “Hmm, maybe.” And Hen calls her, like, “Dang, girl, already?”

Ellen: [00:24:00] This is so cute, this whole scene.

Alice: I love their friendship so much.

Bex: Athena tries to kind of brush her off, like, No, it’s not like that, and Hen says, I’m still trapped in my past, you got free, you gotta tell me about this…

Ellen: Trapped! Ding ding ding!

Bex: and everybody raise a glass, because we have our first mention of the episode title and episode theme.

So, Athena tells Hen about meeting Aaron in the bar. And yeah, this scene is so cute. I totally buy that the chemistry between Angela and Aisha is so perfect. I believe that these two are besties. And that this is just two girls, like having a chat.

Alice: Yeah, I love when they, like, pair up. The ones that are, like, actually friends.

It’s so good. And yeah, Hen and Athena just have the cutest friendship.

Bex: So, Hen is amazed that Athena Grant let a man pick her up and take her home. And Athena’s like, “well, I did run a background check on him first.” [00:25:00] She said, “I didn’t plan to go home with him, but he’s just so…” And she gets this dreamy look on her face as she remembers what happened that night.

And sort of comes back to earth and says, “I just needed to feel like a woman.” Which is kind of what we talked about in the last episode.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: That she needed this after 14 years and a rather sexless marriage. She needed to get some.

Alice: Yeah, good for her.

Ellen: And she didn’t think, she thought it was going to be a one hit wonder, but she guesses she made an impression.

And Hen’s just like, “Really?”

Bex: They do this double high five that ends up with them like holding hands. Yeah. That’s so cute.

Ellen: They’re so cute.

Alice: I love them.

Ellen: I wish there was like, you know, 10 more minutes of that whole scene because it was gorgeous. But we go instead to a mother and her son. I think the closed captions told me that their names were Marjorie and Todd.

[00:26:00] I don’t think they ever actually said their names at all, but that’s their credited names.

Bex: No, they didn’t get any names, but yes. We are at the Wilshire Bedford Medical Tower.

Ellen: Right. So they’re running late for an appointment. They rush through the foyer and get into an elevator while the mom is busy telling the, the boy that, well, he’s like, he looks like he’s about 20, maybe less

Bex: He’s 18.

Ellen: There you go.

Bex: Because she actually says that,

Ellen: oh, you’re 18, not eight. Yeah, that’s right. You don’t have a job. You’re not in school.

Bex: Yeah, apparently they’re going to therapy, I’m assuming for him. And he’s saying that he doesn’t, that maybe they shouldn’t be going to therapy because it’s not working. And he says it’s, and his mother says it’s not working because you’re not trying.

And it starts going on like you’re 18, you don’t have a job, you’re not in school. He kind of pushes back and says, “I just haven’t figured out what I want to do with my life.” [00:27:00] And his mother’s response is, “Who cares what you want to do? Do you think I really want to be spending 80 hours a week doing what I do? No, I don’t.”

And before Todd can answer, the elevator suddenly plummets out from underneath them. They were up at like the eighth floor, I think I counted the numbers ticking up, and they rapidly descend past the second floor, which is when the emergency brake kicks in. We hear the brakes squealing as it tries to slow the elevator cars descent knocking Todd and Marjorie off their feet.

Todd looks like he’s just kind of banged his shoulder. I was surprised he didn’t actually dislocate it, but he seems okay, but Marjorie is out cold.

Ellen: Yeah. And he calls 9-1-1 from inside the elevator.

Bex: Which again, why is he calling 9-1-1? There is a fricking button on the inside of the elevator panel for emergencies.

[00:28:00] You call that.

Ellen: Maybe it’s not working.

Bex: That’s your first port of call.

Alice: He panicked, he’s18. It’s fine.

Bex: Again, the whole like calling the security, which calls the hotel, which then calls 9-1-1, not as good television. Just.

Ellen: Yeah, we need to have the nine one one call to, you know, the trope of the show. So

Bex: yes,

Ellen: The 118 turn up.

Bex: But again, we see this beautiful shot of the ladder truck racing down the street.

But when we get to the actual office building, it’s the engine truck that is parked out the front, they got there first. It’s fine. Also, there is an ambulance parked at the front. There was no ambulance in that scene when they engine when the ladder truck was racing towards them. Told you I’m gonna be so pedantic about this, this episode.

Ellen: Oh dear.

Bex: I am keeping track of these trucks. [00:29:00] Anyway, Marco comes out of the buildings, and I don’t know what his character’s name is, but I’m gonna call him Marco because that’s who I know him as, because he was in one of my favorite TV shows when I was a kid.

Ellen: Oh,

Bex: this is Marco.

Ellen: Well, he’s now Marco. I don’t care what his other name is. (laughs)

All right. Well, he says that all the cars are locked down somewhere around floor eight, as you say. The damn thing just started dropping like a rock. Yeah. And then they work out that the other problem with this is that the basement is currently flooded. So there is water coming into the elevator car.

Bex: Apparently this is the third time that month that the basement has flooded and Bobby just, like, his hackles start to raise. It’s like you didn’t think to get the elevator cables checked after it flooded because you know the water corrodes them and you know.

Ellen: I don’t know how Bobby knows, well, actually, maybe I do know so much about building maintenance, but you know.

Alice:  [00:30:00] He’s very up to date on building codes.

Bex: I think he’s, I think he’s has a very special interest in building maintenance. And Marco kind of says it was on the to do list. They were going to get the flooding sorted first and then they were going to look at the elevator, but the elevators kind of forced their hand.

Alice: Yeah, no shit.

Ellen: Yes, so Todd tries to get his mum to stand up because you know, there’s water getting higher. Bobby says they’re going to have to go in from above. So Buck and I should go down there. And Chim just really kind of said, like, flatly says, “I’ll get the winch.” Cause we know how much Chim loves working the winch.

Bex: But he doesn’t, he doesn’t look like he’s bitching and moaning about it. Like, the last time he was ordered to work the winch, he thought it was the worst thing in the world and he hated every minute of it. Right now he’s just like, yeah, okay, I’m gonna get the winch.

Ellen: Yeah, okay, this is my job. I’ll do it.

Bex: That’s my job.

Alice: He’s got no one to, he’s got no one to play up his work stories to now. [00:31:00] He doesn’t care anymore.

Ellen: Aww. That’s sad.

Alice: Poor Chimney.

Bex: See, I had a different take on that, but okay, let’s go with yours.

Ellen: Way to make it sad. (laughs)

Alice: I mean, it’s kind of good that Tatiana’s out of his life anyway, so.

Ellen: Yeah, that’s true. Where are we up to? Oh, so Todd and his mom have a bit of a heart to heart moment while they’re in peril and he says, “Oh, we’re only here because of me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Dad left because of me.”

And his mom’s like, “no, no, no. He didn’t leave because of you. He left because he got bored of me and our life. And you’re nothing like him. You take after me. That’s why I’m so hard on you.”

Like, Oh my God, these dysfunctional families. So. By then they’ve got everything ready and Buck and Hen rappel down to the top of the elevator.

Bex: [00:32:00] The water is now waist high at this point inside the elevator car.

Ellen: Yeah. And they manage to get in through the roof to the top of the elevator and all the way down and they’re so happy to see them. And they get the mum out.

Bex: But because the hatch of the elevator car is so small, only one person can go up at a time, so they need a second harness for Todd to be able to get out, because Buck can’t just kind of grab him and hold him as they lift Buck out.

But unfortunately, as the water is filling up the elevator car, it is too late. weighing down the car, which is putting stress on the brakes, and it’s dragging the elevator, and it starts to drop. Yeah. So the water is still rapidly filling. Buck is asking for another harness. I don’t know why they don’t have a second harness.

I don’t know why they don’t grab the one off Marjorie and throw that one down for Buck. Buck [00:33:00] asks Todd how good he is at pull ups. I think he’s asking whether Todd can, like, climb the rope out of the harness, climb the rope out of the elevator car through the hatch, and then Hen can lift him up.

But, and, but, instead, and I don’t know how much time lapses, but somehow, even though he’s like, chin deep in water, Buck manages to get himself out of his harness, get Todd into it, and then they lift Todd up out through the hatch.

Ellen:. Yeah, I thought that was all a little fast. And then, followed by the water…

Alice: Look, Buck is really good at getting undressed, okay?

Ellen: The water then comes right up and Buck, by the time they pull Todd all the way out of the elevator and up, but up to the floor, which they descended from. Hen’s like calling out to Buck and he’s underwater, but the water. Buck’s fully under the water. Yeah. But the water gets high enough that he’s able to then actually just swim up basically and pull himself out of [00:34:00] the top of the elevator.

So he’s okay.

Bex: He looks so pleased with himself.

Ellen: Yeah, he’s so happy.

Alice: He’s so cocky this episode. I love him.

Bex:  And Hen’s just looking at him like, damn you for making me worry about you.

Alice: And it’s like, I don’t want feelings about you. What are you doing? Worst younger brother ever. Should have just got a Dalmatian. (laughs)

Bex: So I think then we cut back to our dysfunctional family. And Marjorie has come to the realization that she and Todd could have died trapped in that elevator together…

Alice: Hang on, I’ve got to take another drink.

Bex: Full of anger and resentment, and she doesn’t want that for them. And Todd’s trying to reassure her like, “No, mum, they got us out, we’re free.”

And she’s like, “no, no, no, no, like, we’re physically free, but we’re not free metaphorically. So yeah. Pack your things, you’re moving out.” Literally.

Ellen: [00:35:00] I laughed so hard when she said that. I’m like, what?

Alice: Like, he’s 18!

Bex: He’s going, “But I don’t have a job!” and she goes, “You’ve just proved to me that you’re not a helpless idiot, you can find a job.”

Alice: Like in this economy?

Bex: Hen’s looking at them like, what in the white people?

Alice: Like poor kid is 18. Like Jesus.

Ellen: Yeah, but it’s, it’s funny because like they just had this life altering experience and this is what she’s coming out of it with?

Alice: Yeah, and she’s like, get the fuck out of my house.

Bex: I love you, now move out.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: From that scene we cut to a beautiful house at nighttime.

There’s floor to ceiling wall to wall patio, full glass windows slash doors. That lead out to a pool and we can, where the camera is outside so we can see into the house. [00:36:00] Where Aaron has Athena pinned up against the wall and from what we can tell she seems to be quite enjoying it. So this must be the tomorrow night after my shift that she was talking to Hen about.

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: Yeah. This is date number two.

Bex: Looks like it’s going well.

Ellen: Yeah, except that he tells her to keep on her uniform. And she’s like, well, how’s this gonna work? And then he goes on like a little, you know, roleplay situation.

Bex: Which Athena was into, until he kind of broke from procedure. So the roleplay was that it’s a really hot Los Angeles day, he’s doing 90 in a 45 zone, she pulls him over, and as she approaches the window, because she’s so hot, she starts unbuttoning her blouse.

And that’s where he loses her. [00:37:00] She’s like, “why the fuck would I be unbuttoning my blouse?” And she kind of asked, Like, if you’ve been smoking something, what are you on? No, Aaron’s not high. It turns out that Aaron is a bratty little sub just looking for a dom. And he thinks that he’s found it in Athena. So he says that he is a strong man. He runs an entire department with 50 people answering to him.

He’s always in control, so what could be more sexy than a woman strong enough to take that control away from me?

Ellen: She’s like a bit taken aback. She’s like, “Oh, I’ve never done anything like that before. At least not in the bedroom.” It’s like really, Athena. I find that hard to believe.

Bex: I really, really questioned that Michael did not ask her to peg him at least once.

Ellen: She has big top energy. But she’s into it. Like she, you know, tuts at him and picks up her handcuffs and…

Bex: She takes off her tool belt, drops it down. He’s like fully stripping. [00:38:00] She very pointedly puts her phone on the dresser on the other side of the room. Aaron gets onto the bed. She grabs those handcuffs, crawls on top of him, tells him he’s under arrest on the charges of being so damn fine.

Ellen: There’s

a very conveniently placed bar above head height on this four poster bed, or at least a large headboard that has, you know, bars across it?

Bex: I mean, my, my headboard has bars across it. If anybody’s interested.

Ellen: Oh, there you go. Perfect for handcuffs.

Bex: But yeah it’s very interesting.

Alice: Hang on, I’ve just got to open Amazon and grab some handcuffs real quick. What?

Bex: It is very interesting that when Aaron kind of puts his hands up to get handcuffed, he kind of slides his hand under the bar of the headboard, not just puts it on top of the bar.

So, when Athena snaps the bracelet around, she kind of goes over the top of the bar to snap it around his wrist.

Ellen: [00:39:00] Oh, okay. Also, if he had done it the other way, then they wouldn’t be trapped.

Bex: They would be handcuffed together, but they wouldn’t be trapped on the bed, but because when

Alice: Trapped. Take a drink.

Aaron says, like, do you want me to, do you want to read me your rights? And Athena’s like, ooh, you have the right to be as loud as you’d like, and sort of bends down to start kissing him, and Aaron, thinking he’s being cheeky, grabs the other bracelet and snaps it around Athena’s wrist. So, his wrist is under the bar of the bracelet.

is going across the bar onto Athena’s wrist. So yeah, they are cuffed to the bed around their headboard.

Alice: They’re what? They’re trapped?

Ellen: They’re trapped.

Bex: They’re trapped!

Alice: A friend said recently that he tried to show his family this show, but he forgot how much sex was in season one. And like, this was just after I finished last week’s episode.

And I was like, really? Then I come straight into this episode. And then you got to this one. [00:40:00] And I messaged him and I’m like, yep. Okay. Yep. Yep. Can see why showing you your family this was awkward and he’s like, yep. I yeah was much better once we got to season two I’m like Jesus Christ you poor thing.

Ellen: Oh things dry up a little bit in season two, do they?

Bex: Ah…A little bit?

Ellen: Okay.

Bex: Yeah. Anyway, Athena freaks out. She’s like, “What the hell did you just do?” And Aaron’s like, “I thought you were into this.” And she’s like, “yeah, but you just cuffed us to the bed. And these are not like the sexy fun time handcuffs that you can just like, squeeze them and release the pressure and they pop open.

These are like full professional, you need a key to get out of them.”

Ellen: Yeah, and my key is over there.

Bex: In my tool belt, on the other side of the room.

Ellen: I want to know why she, she’s like, has her tool belt in the first place. How far is she taking this roleplay?

Bex: She’s come from her shift.

Alice: Yeah, she came just off her shift. Yeah, but,

Bex: so she was fully in uniform when Aaron had her pinned to the wall.

Ellen: [00:41:00] Yeah, but I, like, wouldn’t you remove that as fast as you can after you finish your shift? Like, it’s, maybe, maybe if she’s been in the job a while, it’s like, she doesn’t even notice it anymore. But, like, did she have her gun on this belt? Like, you know, it’s…

Bex: Maybe, maybe Aaron said, you know, you don’t need to bother getting changed.

Alice: Yeah. He had a plan. It’s fine.

Bex: Yeah. I think he, I think he wanted this. He wanted something along these lines. Yeah.

Ellen: Well, anyway, they are trapped and he does say, like, they try to get out of it. Like, she tries to climb over the top of the bed, but the bed won’t move. And he suggests maybe he can call his friend who lives a couple of doors down.

And Athena’s like, “No. Absolutely not.”

Bex: “No one is seeing me like this.”

Ellen: And so he’s like, “well, what are we going to do? We’ll have to call 9-1-1.” And she’s like, “Actually…”

Bex: “Actually…” (laughs) which then we get a very confused Terry walking over to Abby going [00:42:00] “Um, you have a caller on line two. They specifically requested, no, actually demanded to speak to you.”

Poor Terry. I don’t know what Athena said to him.

Alice: I can just imagine him being like “we’re 9-1-1. We don’t really take requests.” And Athena’s just like, “put Abby on the phone right fucking now. I will have your badge.” Terry’s like, I don’t have it. “Just put it…”

Ellen: There’s that big top energy, the dom energy.

So she has this really awkward conversation with Abby where Abby’s like, “Oh, hi, Sergeant Athena.” And she’s like, “No, no, no, no, not sergeant. Just Athena.”

She’s like, “I’ve got myself into a bit of a jam. I need you to call Henrietta and have her call me back on this number.” And Abby’s like “do you have her number?” She’s like, “no, I don’t have her number. Do you think I’d be calling you if I had her number?”

Bex: [00:43:00] Oh, the very modern problem of where we have everyone’s number and we constantly talk to them and text them on the phone but because the number is saved in our contacts we’ve never actually memorized that phone number.

Ellen: Yep. I barely know my own phone number.

Alice: I call my best friend every day. Yeah, literally. I call my best friend every day. The only, like, if I lost my phone, the only reason I’d know her number was because it’s on all my dog’s tags. Like, I’d have to chase down one of my dogs and be like, okay, come here. I have to call your other mother.

Bex: So I mean, it does… I think it’s, this line is supposed to be like, this so ridiculous that you have to call 9-1-1 to get your best friend’s phone number. But yeah, I mean, it’s very, very understandable and very relatable.

Alice: Yeah, absolutely.

Bex: So, Abby says. “Well, it’s okay. I can just ask Buck for it.” (laughs) And Athena’s like, “okay, fine, but you cannot tell Buck why you want it.”

And again, I want to hear that conversation. Like, “Hey Buck, it’s Abby. So do you have Henrietta’s number?” [00:44:00] “Why?” “Oh, just, just, I just need it.”

Ellen: I can’t give you that information or I’d have to kill you.

Alice: Look, honestly, Buck is such a beautiful golden retriever. That Abby would probably text him and be like, “Hey, do you have Hen’s number?”

And Buck would be like, “Yeah, here it is.”

Bex: No, no questions.

Alice: And Abby would be like, you’re not, you’re not going to ask. No. Okay. Yep. Cool. Thanks Buck. See you later.

Ellen: Absolutely. That is absolutely how it went down.

Alice: Yeah. Like there wouldn’t even be a conversation. It’s like, yep. No problem.

Bex: Aaron is just the whole time just lying on the bed, listening to Athena.

Yeah. Just like, okay, this is my life right now.

Ellen: He’s so chill, this dude, actually. Very chill.

Alice: Abby also agrees, like, Abby also checks in that Athena’s not in danger. And Athena’s like, no, not of anything except being embarrassed.

Bex: Because, I mean, at this point, she’s still in half of her uniform, but her shirt is completely unbuttoned. [00:45:00] Aaron is naked except for his boxer briefs.

Alice: Like, you can just tell, Abby would be so, Abby’s just like, what, what happened? Like, yeah, I’d be so curious. Cause she, she’s like, surely it’s not what I’m imagining.

Bex: I’d be dying of curiosity.

Alice: Right? Like, I’d want to know so bad. But like, she doesn’t know Hen well enough to be like, “so, the other night, what was that about?”

Bex: And she can’t ask Buck to ask Hen, because then Buck would be fighting out, and that’s what Athena doesn’t want.

But it works, obviously. However she does it, Abby gets in touch with Buck, who then gives her Hen’s number, who then Abby gives the number to Athena, and then Athena calls Hen, and sometimes later, Hen lets herself into Aaron’s house.

Ellen: Yes, how did Hen get into the house? Who knows?

Bex: [00:46:00] Because, because, because, because, this is my theory.

Because Aaron was saying, “I want to call my friend two houses down.” I’m going to say that his brother or his friend two houses down has his spare set of keys.

Alice: I totally was just imagining that he had one of those fake rocks. (laughs) But like, it’s such a nice house that he doesn’t even have normal rocks in the front yard. So it’s literally just like a fully paved like driveway and then just a rock and that rock has a key.

Either that or it’s such a nice house that it’s just a pin pad and he just told him, told her whoat the code was.

Bex: Well, no, it was, it was keys. The jingling.

Alice: Oh, it was keys? Okay.

Ellen: Yeah. But the thing is…

Alice: Def fake rock!

Ellen: would his friend down the road give him, give her, give a stranger? The keys? Like…

Bex: No, cause I can imagine that, just to make it even more convoluted, so Athena would have, Hen would have called Athena on Aaron’s phone.

Yep. And Athena would have said, you’re gonna go to this house and get the keys. Aaron would have then called his friend and said, “This chick is going to show up asking for my keys. [00:47:00] I need you to give them to her, no questions asked.”

Ellen: Yeah, no questions asked. At this point, there are far too many people involved in this secret.

Alice: It’s, it’s so stupid. And meanwhile, Buck has just texted Abby, “See, see you in the morning!”

Bex: But it works. So Hen lets herself in, she and Athena play a game of Marco Polo to get a hen to the bedroom where she takes one look at Athena and just bursts into hysterical laughter. Like, almost falling over, she is laughing so hard.

Ellen: I was also laughing so hard. a lot in this part. And she’s like, you called 9-1-1 for this?

Alice: Like, Athena’s like, covering Aaron with a pillow. Aaron’s laughing, Athena’s just like, are we done? Like, are we done? Yep. No, we’re still good. Okay. This is fine.

Bex: [00:48:00] And then they have the penny drops for, for Hen, for why she’s called, because Athena needs the key and the key is in her tool belt. So she grabs the key and she’s like, okay, cool.

Here’s the key. I’m just going to unlock you. And Athena’s like, did I ask you to unlock us? And like, shocked Pikachu, like what? Oh, just, just put the key there where I can reach it and you can go. (laughs)

Ellen: She’s just like, get it girl!

Bex: “I’m just, I’m just going to grab your tool belt and drag that closer in case you want to get kinky with the taser a little bit later on too.” (laughs)

Alice: I laughed so hard at the kinky with a taser line!

Ellen: and she laughs so hard as she leaves.

Bex: Aaron started laughing at this point too.

Alice: She threatens to take a selfie at this point, too.

Bex: Oh, the selfie!! (laughs)

Ellen: that would’ve been a very blurry selfie. If it actually worked

Bex: [00:49:00] 100% later on after all of this is done Aaron is going to turn to Athena and gone, “I really liked that Hen.”

Alice: Athena’s just going to be like, yeah, she won’t be alive much longer.

Ellen: Hey, she just rescued them.

Bex: So from kinky police role play to something a little more wholesome we cut to Abby driving through a vineyard, looking incredibly confused but her, her like Google Maps equivalent is telling her she’s in the right direction.

So she just keeps driving turns up this dirt road that goes up a hill and at the top of the hill we see Buck just sort of unfolding itself from where he was sitting on the side of the hill. And Buck stands at the top of the hill with this huge bouquet of flowers just waiting for her to join him up the top of the hill.

Alice: And he is in leather and he is looking good.

Bex: [00:50:00] It’s very Buck’s crop cleans up very nicely.

Alice: He’s got this leather jacket, his hair’s all good, like Yeah.

Ellen: He is, yep. It’s his day off, and he’s living.

Alice: That’s it. But like, is this the breakfast date though? Like, is this after a graveyard shift?

Bex: I was looking at it going, wait, so they cut the scene, and is it the wrong time, but would you have champagne and truffles?

Alice: Yeah. For breakfast? Absolutely,

Ellen: why not? Like, champagne’s a big thing for breakfast, right?

Alice: Especially if you’re off a graveyard shift as well, because like, technically it’s your night time.

Bex: No, no, no. I don’t think it is though, because after this scene went Buck goes back to work and like his shift has just started.

Alice: Oh, he does too!

Ellen: Yeah, you’re right. Oh, what is going on in this episode? No one checked anything.

Alice: How long was the, the hot air balloon flight going to go for then? Like up and down and then Buck’s like, shit, I gotta go to work.

Ellen: No, It’s his day off.

Bex: No, cause he, he took the entire day off. But when. Abby abandons him for reasons that we’ll talk about later.

[00:51:00] He decides, well, I’m just going to go back to work then.

Ellen: Because when he gets to work, Bobby says it’s your day off, like, what are you doing here, you know?

Alice: I thought you were supposed to be having a blimp or something. It is my day off today, and I may or may not have gone to work. But still.

Ellen: I thought you were going to say you went in a balloon.

Alice: Like, it was the other branch, so technically it wasn’t my work, but it was the other branch. Anyway, Didn’t count, okay?

Bex: I think, yeah, I think that first scene with Abby and the graveyard shift and the breakfast date just was completely, did not belong in this episode. Everything else in this episode has gone in chronological order. That scene is the outlier.

Ellen: Yeah, Okay.

Alice: We just missed breakfast. That’s fine.

Bex: Let’s just, this is another, another morning.

Ellen: Yep. Strike it from the record. Yes.

Bex: So yeah, they’re gonna go on a hot air balloon date, which Abby doesn’t look that thrilled about because while she’s never been up in a hot air balloon, she has answered plenty of calls from when they’ve crashed.

Ellen: [00:52:00] I heard that and I’m like, oh, that’s filling me with confidence for this scene. But we don’t even get that far, because we don’t, as soon as they take a few steps towards the air, the balloon Abby’s phone rings and it’s Carla who is trying to calm down a very distraught Patricia.

Bex: We can hear Patricia in the background going, “Who are you? Abby? Where’s Abby?”

Ellen: Yeah. And when Carla puts Abby on the phone, Patricia says, “Why are you keeping me prisoner?” Oh.

Bex: Even Patricia’s trapped.

Ellen: Oh my God.

Alice:  I ran out of drink. I can’t keep taking drinks

Ellen: We should definitely do this episode for the drinking game. But Carla says she thinks that Patricia needs to see her face.

Alice: like she’s got her on speakerphone and she doesn’t understand. And so Abby goes, yeah, I’ll, I’ll be there as fast as I can. And Buck just looks so sad.

Bex: [00:53:00] He’s like, it’s a hot air balloon, you can’t just reschedule a hot air balloon.

Ellen: God knows how much money he spent on this thing. Which he’s probably not getting back. So, I understand why he’s disappointed. But, you know.

Bex: Abby explains that it’s her mum, she has, they’ve, they had a bad night. She’s just in a terrible place. She really just needs to go and she’s sorry but, But, kind of says, “Yeah, it’s fine” And she books it out of there. Leaving Buck just standing there. He sort of looks over his shoulder at the hot air balloon guy and says, “So you want to give me a lift to work?”

Which the first time I watched that episode I went, Yeah, Abby, what are you doing just abandoning Buck? But his jeep’s back there. parked up on the hill behind him. He’s not abandoned and he doesn’t need a hot air balloon to get to work. [00:54:00] Unless he’s just saying that because he’s like, well, I booked this hot air balloon.

Alice: I figured that he was like, well, I’m all geared up for a hot air balloon ride.

Ellen: Man, I would have got on that balloon and drank the champagne and eaten the truffles. And yeah.

Bex: Get sad drunk.

Ellen: And then not gone to work. But it’s his family, so he has to go to work, you know, if he’s feeling sad.

Bex: So then we cut to the 118 where Bobby is lacing up his boots, clearly getting ready for his shift.

And Buck walks in. Already dressed. Maybe he’s got his, maybe he went home and went, fuck it, I’m going to go to work. Got dressed.

Alice: I think he just got to work early. And so like, he’s already dressed. He’s like had a bite to eat.

Bex: And he clearly needs a, like a father, son, heart to heart with Bobby.

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: I love that Bobby just goes, aren’t you supposed to be up in a blimp or something?

[00:55:00] Like Bobby’s like, yeah, I totally like was listening.

Bex: Yes. Yeah, he was, he corrects Bobby and says it was a hot air balloon, but she bailed cause her mom wasn’t doing well. And Bobby’s all like, meh, sometimes that happens, and Buck’s like, no, no, no, I need you to say more because I need to get this out.

So he just ends up blurting out this whole thing to Bobby about how great Abby is, you know, “she’s smart when she makes fun of me it doesn’t make me feel bad, she has her own money, the sex is insane, she’s perfect, but maybe she’s not for me.”

Ellen: Yeah, Bobby’s like, oh, I just thought her hair was great.

Bex: It really is great. Connie Britton has such great hair. It really is.

Ellen: He wants to have, he wants to have fun. He wants to, but he doesn’t want to jump back into bed with every girl he meets, so he’s not that person anymore, but he wants someone who’s less adult.

Bex: [00:56:00] This is buck 2. 0. Like, what does that mean, Buck?

Alice: He’s buck 1. 5. He’s getting there.

Bex: He’s still conscious that he’s, he’s like, I’m only 26, right? I should be having fun. I want to have fun. And I guess he’s not having fun right now because Abby keeps bailing on him.

Alice: And everything’s too real. Like Buck’s clearly never had that responsibility.

Bex: Buck’s never had a relationship before.

Alice: Yeah. Like, I don’t think Buck’s even ever kept a house plant alive before. And now all of a sudden he’s with this woman who has to keep her mum alive.

Bex: And can’t just drop whatever she’s doing to play with him when he wants to play. She has other responsibilities.

Alice: Like it’s, it’s very like morbid.

Because it’s not a kid like, you know, kids go to school and that sort of stuff. Like this is a full time thing and like it’s only gonna end with Abby saying goodbye to her mum at some point.

Ellen: [00:57:00] Yeah.

Alice: Like whether she puts her in care or what. Like, that’s the only way that that’s gonna end and that’s a lot of adulting.

Ellen: That’s terrifying for him, I’m sure. Yeah. Oh, he’s getting some cold feet.

Bex: Especially with his background, like Alice knowing, you and I knowing what we know about Buck.

Ellen: Oh, there’s more pain to come, I’m sure.

Alice: Oh, there’s so much pain to come. We’re only in season one, honey.

Ellen: (laughs) How did I sign up for this?

Bex: But Bobby gives it to Buck straight.

He basically says that he thinks that Buck was hoping that he was going to be able to pull Abby out of the trap that she was in with her mum, but that’s not what’s going to happen. Yes. And instead what Abby needs is not for Buck to rescue her but for him to jump into the trap with her and keep her company.

[00:58:00] And Buck just kind of thinks about that and considers it. Because yeah, that’s, that’s a lot harder than swooping in and being that white knight.

Alice: Yeah, because like when they met, like, Abby was like, you know, I don’t get to do anything, it’s just me and my mom, like, and so Buck was like, oh, that’s okay, like, I’ll just take you away from your mom, and Abby’s like, no, I’m, no, that’s not it.

Bex: Yes, take me away from my mom, but. Like not too far. And yeah, I need to go back every now and then.

Ellen: That’s a hard, like reality check for a 26 year old. I think maybe he’s also coming to

Alice: really, but especially

Ellen: facing, facing that mortality concept is, is really hard when it hits, you know, I say this knowing nothing about what Buck’s backstory is.

And I won’t know for a few more episodes. I’m sure. I don’t know when he’s. Intro, like, origin story episode.

Bex: Buck Begins is like, three, four? I want to say season four.

Ellen: [00:59:00] Oh god, okay.

Bex: Ah yeah, season four.

Ellen: Okay, so we’re going to get to know him really well before we get destroyed by his backstory.

Alice: Yeah. Yeah.

Ellen: Cool. Yeah. Okay.

Alice: And there’s a whole lead up before then too. Super fun.

Ellen: Alright.

Bex: Yeah. So, the, from segueing from stepping inside someone’s trap we cut to Winslow, who is, like, army crawling through this tiny tunnel.

Ellen: There’s rats in there with him.

Bex: He’s got a zippo lighter in one hand, a loaf of bread, a newspaper in the other one.

Alice: Yeah, it’s clearly, like, hoarder. Be like the piles, like the tunnel’s made by like piles of stuff.

Ellen: Yeah, books and furniture and magazines and stuff, right?

Alice: Yeah. So he’s like crawling through this tunnel and he’s calling out to Cecil. Cecil. Cecil’s like, were you followed? Winslow goes, no, no, I wasn’t followed. [01:00:00] You sure? Yes. But then

Bex: Did you get the bread I liked? Yes.

Alice: But then Winslow gets snagged on something and so he like twists around to sort of see and try and detach himself and then there’s this rumbling and the walls just completely collapse on him.

Bex: And we cut to a 9-1-1 call and this is Abby. Is this the first Abby 9-1-1 we’ve had?

Alice: The first one, This episode?

Bex: yeah. Technically I mean she was on call for Athena’s personal emergency. Oh true, yeah. This is her first like official 911 call. And it’s Cecil calling for help because he thinks his brother’s been crushed because he set off one of the booby traps. And Abby’s all like, “I’m sorry, did you say booby traps?”

So she dispatches the 118 and the engine truck and the ambulance show up [01:01:00] and I honestly think it should have been the ladder truck because the ladder truck has all the tools in it.

Ellen: Oh,

Bex: so I think that would have been more useful, but maybe they did.

Ellen: Where did they get the like circular saw from then?

Bex: All of the, all of the trucks have like, all of the vehicles have saws on them, but the bigger tools are in the ladder truck.

Alice: So like the jaws of life would be in the engine…?

Bex: It’s in the ladder truck. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don’t know, maybe they only had the budget to get one truck, so they just decided it was going to be an engine truck for this episode.

Yeah. And that’s what’s going to every call.

Alice: They spent a lot on stacks of newspapers for this. Yes.

Bex: So anyway, yeah, so they, they get a saw out, which is not like the big emergency rotary saw, but looks like the Makita that your dad’s got down in the, the workshop at the back of the house. [01:02:00] I don’t know if that’s what they normally would carry, but that’s what they use

Alice: Yeah. They just went down to Bunnings and grabbed a a Ryobi.

Ellen: Yep. He went to Hammerbarn. He cuts a great big hole in the door, in the front door. And when he sort of lets go of it, it just collapses outwards because there’s a bunch of books and stuff leaning, leaning up against it.

Bex: This random baby doll comes flying out as well.

Alice: And yeah, it’s definitely a hoarder’s house.

Bex: Yeah. Bobby is talking to a woman in the neighborhood while Buck and Chim and Hen are sort of investigating different avenues into the house. And she calls Winslow and Cecil kooks and hoarders on steroids. She says she never, she’s never seen one of them.

[01:03:00] And the other one comes out every now and then sort of skulks around the neighborhood, goes shopping and comes back. And it’s funny because when we first meet Winslow, he’s trying to reassure Cecil that, you know, I circled the blocks three times so that no one’s followed me. And then this woman says like, “He comes home and he circles the block three times. Like he’s trying to make sure nobody’s followed him, but nobody’s following him.”

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: How do these people in these shows always know so much about their neighbors? Like, I literally know nothing about mine and I live in a unit block.

Ellen: I’m not going to be, like, maybe I’d notice them going around the block three times, but I wouldn’t be.

Alice: I absolutely wouldn’t.

Ellen: I don’t, you know, I wouldn’t be noticing they’re not coming and going.

Bex: I think it depends on the kind of neighbor you are. There are some neighbors that will notice everything that’s going on.

Ellen: That’s true. This lady is funny because she, her name’s Betsy according to the closed captions, and she’s like the stereotypical neighbor lady.

[01:04:00] She’s in her dressing gown and she has curlers. And she’s got a ciggy in her hand as she’s talking to Bobby.

Bex: And to the point where I actually had to look up to make sure it wasn’t the same actress, but it’s fine.

Ellen: It was reminding me of that. I don’t, I don’t remember what her name was, but that episode of Supernatural where she’s a demon and, and like where Cas comes back and he’s like holding her by the curlers.

Bex: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ellen: But anyway, she’s very observant, obviously, because yeah. They’re kooks.

Bex: Well, someone who’s not observant is Buck, who is up peering into one of the windows on the upper story. He’s pulled the boards away and he’s sort of taking a look around. He’s amazed at what he’s found, but while he’s looking at everything, he doesn’t see the bowling ball that comes swinging towards him like a cannonball and knocks him off his ladder.

Ellen: It must have hurt so much! [01:05:00] I mean, he is wearing a helmet, but like, it looked like it hit him in the face.

Bex: I am assuming it hit him on the helmet because he does not show any sign of like concussion or blood or anything.

Ellen: Like if that had smacked him in the nose that would have like, he would have, there would be blood everywhere.

Alice: They can’t hit him in his pretty face.

Bex: I’m really surprised they didn’t have it hit him on the side of his face and they make some sort of comment like, no one can tell, you’ve already got a mark on the side of your face.

Ellen: Thankfully they stopped making those remarks about that earlier.

Bex: So that’s the first of the booby traps that they’ve found.

So, Abby then sort of connects Cecil to Bobby. And Bobby’s telling him that they are going to pick, they need to get into the house, they are going to pick a window, and Cecil is going to disarm all the booby traps. And Cecil’s going, “I can’t, I’m blind.” Bobby’s like, ah, fuck. Now what do we do? [01:06:00] The best way into the house, as far as Cecil knows, is the back tunnel, which is the one that Winslow used, but since that one has collapsed, it’s going to be the front tunnel, from the front door, which goes back about 25 feet, which is about 7 meters, but warns Bobby that he has to make sure he stays on the right, because about halfway down there is a trap, and if you trip it, a circular saw blade will fall and cut you right in two.

Alice: That’s, you know, like, most houses

Ellen: great. Like, how did they think up these horrible traps?

Alice: Literally.

Ellen: Like, a bowling ball to the face, like, Circular saw in your guts.

Bex: It’s very Roadrunner and Coyote. But, not humorous at all.

Ellen: Hmm.

Bex: So they’re all sort of staring at the door and staring at the tunnel, and Buck’s game to try and go through and disarm the traps, but he doesn’t think he’ll fit.

And Chim, Chim senses his moment and he goes, “I would. I’ll fit, Cap, pick me, send me in!”

Alice: [01:07:00] I love that Chim’s crawling through the tunnel and doing the bit from Die Hard and Buck’s like, what are you doing?

And yeah, Chim even says to Buck, you make me sad.

Bex: They cut to Bobby and Bobby’s just like rolling his eyes, and I don’t know whether he’s rolling his eye because he didn’t know what Chim was saying either, or at the interaction between Bobby and, to the interaction between Chim and Buck, maybe he’s just done with all of them.

Alice: Probably just done with all of them.

Bex: So Chim keeps crawling and we get to the… We can hear a circular saw spinning somewhere. He gets to a cuckoo clock and stops and in the light shining from his headlamp he can see a tripwire sort of running at sort of chin height and then looks up and the circular saw is directly above him.

And Cecil talks him through how to disarm it. [01:08:00] The cuckoo clock is set at 12, he needs to move the hands to 11:11 and the clock strikes, I don’t know why it strikes, because it only strikes on the hour. It wouldn’t strike at 11:11 unless Winslow has somehow got in and changed all of the mechanisms on the inside, but it strikes, the cuckoo pops out, and the circular saw powers down.

Ellen: I’m guessing he probably did since he rigged up the entire house to be a bomb, basically.

Bex: So he keeps crawling and he gets to the main room where he can stand upright. And he finds Cecil.

Ellen: Yeah. And he’s in a very dark room. So the windows are all boarded up. So, Chim goes and breaks some of the boards off the window so he can let a bit of light in, but Cecil’s really, you know, getting very distressed about the whole thing.

He’s like, Tim asked him how long they’d been living like this. And he’s like, “well, I don’t know what you mean,” [01:09:00] but they’ve been there since, you know, after mom and dad died. which was in 1967. So, and they’ve been protecting the house since then. But he can’t do it by himself. He needs Chim to stop what he’s doing and help me find him right now.

So Chim stops and sort of comes over and, you know, tells him it’s going to be okay. “I’m going to find your brother. Wait right here and I’ll come back for you.”

Alice: These characters are honestly fascinating. Like we get them… We get like a little bit of backstory and it’s, I’m just, like, I just want more. Like, not, often we get like too much of background characters.

Bex: These two are fascinating.

Alice: But I just want, like, because they’re like, you know, been in the house since mom and dad died, so, and then they had to protect it. So I’m like, did they, like, did their parents die in a home invasion? Like, what happened to make them spiral like this?

Bex: I’m gonna, there’s obviously some mental health issues going on with [01:10:00] Cecil that Winslow has just gone along with.

Ellen: No, he’s Winslow seems to be very overprotective, like extremely protective of his brother.

Bex: So they’re, they’re kind of feeding off each other.

Alice: Yeah. I don’t know if either of you have watched Better Call Saul.

Bex: No.

Alice: But it so Saul, is it Saul’s brother?

It’s been a long time since I watched it. I think it’s Saul’s brother is the same sort of way. Like he’s unwell and like just housebound and his house is just full of old newspapers like it’s not quite hoarder level but… Yeah, like he’s doesn’t have electricity because he doesn’t trust it and Saul sort of like goes along with it But at different times he’s like you need to snap out of this and he’s just like no like I can’t, this is my life.

Ellen: Right. Yeah.

Alice: Okay. I just wanted to know so much more about these characters.

Ellen: Well, they seemed really sweet, apart from the, you know, deadly traps thing, but like, [01:11:00] otherwise they’re, you know, they can’t leave without the other one, and

Alice: Yeah, that’s it. Like, their bond is so

Bex: Extreme.

Alice: It’s Sam and Dean, in a different universe.

Ellen: It’s Codependent.

Bex: Yeah, yeah. Codependent is the word I’m looking for. Yeah.

Alice: Yeah, it’s definitely the Winchester brothers in a different universe.

Ellen: Oh man, that’s sad.

Bex: Okay, so, so which one is the blind one sitting in the chair and which is the other one army crawling through the tunnels to get bread?

Alice: Oh. Oh, I reckon Dean’s sitting in the chair and Sam just goes along with it.

Ellen: I was going to say the other way around because Dean’s always looking after Sam, so.

Bex: Like, Sam fucks off whenever he can.

Alice: Yeah, but if something really bad happened to Dean, I mean, except going to purgatory. But yeah, like this is, this is like if Mary had been killed by like a home invader instead of a demon.

[01:12:00] And so John Winchester was just like, we have to protect the house because it’s all we have left of your mother.

Ellen: Oh my god, someone write this fic, please.

Alice: And then John also dies and leaves the house.

Bex: No, it’s, it’s John and Dean. John is the one stuck in the corner.

Alice: Oh, and Sam’s already left. Yes. Yes! And like they’re in California because they had to… No, that doesn’t work because they’d still be the house that Mary died in.

Ellen: Oh my god.

Alice: But yeah, no, John and Dean. It’s absolutely John and Dean.

Bex: Yeah, and Sam comes back to try and snap them out of it.

Ellen: Interesting, interesting plot. Yes, let’s file that one away for a DCBB sometime. It sounds heartbreaking.

Alice: The poor artist who has to draw the hoarder house!

Ellen: Meanwhile, meanwhile on 9-1-1.

Bex: Yes. The 118… [01:13:00] back on 9-1-1, the 118 are systematically dismantling the hoard.

They’re carrying everything out to the front little garden area to try and clear a path to find Winslow. And they do, they find him. And at this point in my notes, I just started getting very shouty. Because Winslow, there is, they notice some blood on his legs, so they roll him over, Hen cuts away his pant leg, to discover a very gruesome compound fracture.

Which means that the tibia has broken, and the bone has protruded through the skin.

Alice: Yeah, it’s nasty.

Ellen: Buck notices that there’s a discoloration below the break, and there’s, he thinks that the blood might have been cut off, so Bobby asks him to check the dorsalis pedis pulse, which is the artery that runs along the top of your foot.

But they can’t. They can’t find it.

Bex: [01:14:00] She can’t find it, probably because she didn’t take his shoes off.

Ellen: Oh, really? I didn’t notice that.

Bex: There’s no time. There was no time for her to unlace or cut open the laces of his boots or his shoes to take his shoes off to check the pulse.

Alice: Maybe he wasn’t wearing shoes. Maybe they don’t trust shoes.

Ellen: Maybe his foot will fall off if they take the shoe off, I don’t know.

Bex: So now we get to where I start to get really shouty because Chim says that if there is indeed impeded blood flow then he could lose his leg and they are going to realign the fracture in situ, and I am not a doctor, I don’t even play one on TV, but even I would not think that you would not do that.

That the best course of action would be, we are going to stabilize the fracture as it is, we are going to get you to a hospital as soon as possible, and we are going to let the [01:15:00] medical experts pump you full of antibiotics, clean the wound, and get that fracture set under pain medication. Not, snap, like

Alice: I’m sure they gave him morphine. He’ll be fine.

Bex: It was literally, Buck and Bobby held him down. While Hen and Chim snapped his leg into place.

Ellen: And he went, “Sorry, this is going to hurt.”

Bex: And then they yell at him, when he, in pain, starts writhing. And they’re like, no, no, no, keep your leg still. Like, sir!

Ellen: Also, if you… snapping the bone back into place, is that going to re-establish blood flow? I mean

Bex: No! It’s possible you’re going to sever even more of the veins and arteries by re injucing the shattered bone back into

Ellen: I don’t think that’s how it works. It’s not like a kink in a hose where you just straighten it out to get the water flowing again.

Bex: And it’s not a dislocation, like, those bones at that point do not need to be put back together, they need to be, oh, just, no.

Alice: [01:16:00] It’s also been a while at this point, and who knows what bacteria’s in that house. and so, oh, what like, yeah, let’s, let’s let the bacteria go all around his body and potentially kill him from sepsis. Rather than just letting him lose his foot.

Bex: Exactly. Alice, I really want to know what Kate thinks about this scene.

Ellen: Yeah, please find out.

Bex: So, anyway, after torturing Winslow they decide that now’s time to take him to the hospital. Like, not before, now. They strap him to the boardm, pick him up to carry him out And I was very happy at this point because there is a member of the 118 on camera who we have not met before.

Ellen: Oh, we don’t know their name though.

Bex: This is, this is, where did I put his name? His name is Metzen. This is Metzen. There is another guy, I think, outside or waiting by the door and his name is Bird. [01:17:00] So now we have two more members of the 118 that we’ve kind of officially, unofficially met.

Alice: Bex and I have this weird obsession with like, the B team and the other members of the A team who aren’t named.

Because like

Bex: Now they’re named!

Alice: We finally have names! We have names! Like, we get so much with like, Han and Chim and Bobby and Buck, and the other members are just like, Oh, okay, like, it’s fine, don’t invite us to family dinner.

Bex: We’ve got our own like fanfic running in our group chat.

Alice: It’s like, it’s a whole thing.

Ellen: Amazing.

Alice: Like Bobby doesn’t know their names. He just calls them the wrong names all the time. He makes them do stuff for like, Oh, it’s great. It, there’s a full episode that we rewrote in like in the point of view of the B team.

Bex: Like one member comes, they come back on shift and one member of some running out and like, “guys, don’t go in the locker room. Diaz and Buckley are in there.” [01:18:00] The other’s are just like, “Oh God, again?”

So we’ve just met two new members of the 118. I look forward to seeing them in future episodes. Spoiler alert. I don’t think we do. So long Metzen, we barely knew.

Alice: They’re integral, integral members of the team, Bex. Couldn’t do it without them.

Bex: And Cecil is… Winslow is refusing to go. He doesn’t want to go and doesn’t want to leave his brother.

And

Ellen: Cecil says that He’s like, Cecil, don’t let these mean mur like these, these people are gonna, you know, throw me in a dumpster or something. They’re like, torturers.

Bex: I am not surprised that at the end of the episode they go back to their hoarding ways because if this is what happens when I leave the house, I’m not leaving the house again.

Yeah, yeah, that’s fair. But in order to calm his brother and get him to go to hospital and accept medical care, Cecil decides that he is going to put aside whatever mental health issues are going on that [01:19:00] forced him to start living in these conditions and says that he is going to go with Winslow, he is going to leave the house.

And as… oh, the music supervisor needs to be shot for this. So as Winslow. No, as Cecil walks out of the house and greets the sunshine for the first time in, what, 40 years? We have Sunny by Boney M playing, and specifically we get to the part where it says, “The dark days are gone and the bright days are here.”

And I’m like, Really?

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: Isn’t this song, like, covered in an ad or something?

Bex: Sunny, I think it’s, lots of people have covered it. But I think this is the original Boney M version.

Alice: This is definitely the original, yeah.

Bex: Yeah. It’s interesting that Buck and Abby’s scenes bookend this scene with Cecil.

[01:20:00] So, Not even my Buck and Abby’s scene, but we have this scene with Buck being told that Abby’s down in the trap and you have to go down in there with her. And then you get the scene with Cecil and Winslow where they’re in their trap together and they both leave. And then we get Buck and Abby who are having coffee.

Buck says that he figured they’d just try to get some coffee. something not special so that Abby has to cancel it, she won’t feel so bad. I’m like, oh wow, that’s a little bit passive aggressive.

Ellen: Yeah, thanks. I’m just going to join you in your trap after all.

Bex: But yeah, that is the point of this scene is that Abby is trying to let Buck go for Buck’s own good.

She’s, she doesn’t want him to be trapped. in her life with her and Buck saying, no, I, I want to be trapped with you.

[01:21:00] He actually says that he doesn’t think that she’s trapped. He thinks that even with the fact that she’s living in this trapped life, she manages to find a way to break free and to be herself.

And yeah. If the price that he has to pay for being close to her, this, like, amazing woman who despite all of her circumstances still manages to live and be free is a couple of cancelled dates, then you know what, that’s a deal and I’m in, I’m not going anywhere. He’s, he’s really taken Bobby’s speech to heart.

Alice: He’s growing up.

Ellen: It’s sweet.

Bex: Yeah, we’re like Buck 1.75 maybe.

Alice: Yeah.

Bex: Not quite Buck 2.0 yet, but we’re getting there.

Ellen: And Abby’s very grateful. Yeah. They have some smoochy kisses.

Bex: [01:22:00] They do. And then for more smoochy kisses time, we go back to Aaron’s house, where he’s made a duck curry for Athena.

Ellen: Yeah, it’s a good looking duck.

Bex: I love this. He’s, he’s trying, he’s like, he’s fishing for compliments. He’s like, I bet your ex wasn’t a gourmet chef in his spare time. And Athena’s like, actually, Michael was a great cook.

Alice: Why would you bring up the ex-husband when she’s been like, not even divorced, like two weeks maybe? Like Aaron don’t, just don’t

Bex: Now is not the time to try and get comparisons going. He says that he wants to take Athena away for the weekend and Athena just flat out says, “no, I’m not going away with you for the weekend.”

Ellen: Yeah, she just wants no strings attached sex, that’s it. Not a relationship.

Bex: She says I’m trying to work out how to be single at 50.

And I’m like, Oh my god, you’re 50? [01:23:00] And then I googled, and no, no, it gets worse because, well, Athena 50, looking like that. Angela Bassett was 60 when she filmed this scene.

Ellen: Really? Oh my god.

Bex: Oh my god. I want, I know it’s not her skincare secrets, I know it’s genetics though, but just, oh my god, to look like that when I’m 60.

Alice: Wow.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, she’s gorgeous.

Bex: She’s so freaking beautiful. So yeah, she, is trying to work out how to be single at 50. She got married because her biological clock was ticking. She stayed married for the kids. She’s getting divorced for herself. She just wants sex.

Alice: Good for her.

Bex: Aaron looks a little bit point put out about and he goes “I guess you’re not staying the night then.”

And she goes, “well, depends on how good the duck is.”

Bex: Did you not hear the woman, Aaron? [01:24:00] She wants no strings sex.

Ellen: And she’ll eat your food.

Bex: And free food.

Ellen: That will also happen. But we go to a slightly different couple-y scene with Hen banging on a door and Eva answers the door. And she says she’s a bit squirrelly.

She says, “Oh, my lawyer says we’re not supposed to talk.” But, Hen basically accuses her of you know, filing for custody because she wants to get back with him. And Eva’s like, “well, what’s wrong with that? You know, we, we could be together and a family.” And Hen’s like, “He has a family.” So…

Bex: Eva, Eva accuses Karen of baby trapping Hen. Which I don’t really know how that works, because the baby came with Hen, not with Karen. Yeah, it’s the other way around. Like, Hen has baby trapped Karen. Karen doesn’t seem to be complaining. [01:25:00] Karen seems quite happy with her life. And Hen is quite happy with her life. She loves Karen. She does not feel at all trapped with her.

And tells Eva that this fantasy that Eva has of them getting back together is never gonna happen.

Ellen: Yeah, she’s incapable of caring about another person other than herself. Which is why she will never let you near her son.

Alice: This scene, like, it’s so powerful. Yeah. Yeah. Like, Hen’s whole monologue is just, like,

Bex: She puts so much emotion into it.

Her lip is quivering, her eyes are filling with tears, her voice is all over the place. So she’s trying to repress her emotion and just get these words out so she can leave.

Alice: Yeah, like “It’s me trying over and over and over to build a life for us and you tearing it down brick by brick by brick until I’m left alone, heartbroken, in a hole that I don’t even know how to climb out of. I survived you.” Like, oh, it’s just so good.

Ellen: It is good. At the same time, it’s a very… like, from a scriptwriting point of view, it’s a very long monologue and it took me out of the story a little bit just because I was thinking that in a real fight would Eva really be standing there just taking it?

Alice: Like, I feel like Eva would have been a bit taken aback, honestly. Cause like last time they saw each other, I’m pretty sure it was when they slept together.

Bex: Yeah.

Alice: So Eva’s just like, “Oh, Hey!” And Hen’s like, “nah, fuck off.” Like, this is what I think. Like you need to stop. And Eva’s just like, Oh shit. Like she’s actually standing up to me for once.

Bex: Like her, the fantasy that Eva had is just unraveling in front of her and she’s powerless to stop it. [01:27:00] And she doesn’t really know. what to do next. Like, how do I turn this around?

Alice: Yeah, like the power was Eva’s until just this moment.

Bex: Yeah. And then she realized she, nope. It’s interesting the different comparisons I have with both women being trapped.

So Eva accuses Karen of trapping Hen. Hen says that Eva was actually the one that trapped Hen. She’s saying that she was in a hole that Eva put her in. And then Eva even says that she had been trapped sort of physically, this time by prison. And that she is now free of her cage and it has changed her.

She’s a changed person and she loves Hen. But Hen’s not buying it.

Bex: Which… The kind of [01:28:00] the, the segue from Eva saying, I’m free of my trap, I’ve changed. And then we cut to a montage of, with Abby doing a voiceover and the montage that she’s talking over is all of the people that we saw throughout the episode get freed from their traps, going back into them.

Ellen: Oh, so much trapping.

Bex: Sort of. So the, the homeless man that they rescued from the garbage compactor, who they obviously delivered to a shelter, leaves the shelter and goes back on the streets. Wilson and Cecil go back to their house, and Wilson starts putting all of the boards up over the windows that Chim had ripped down and closing the curtains and trapping them back in their house.

Todd gets trapped into a life of capitalistic servitude because his mother has successfully kicked him out and he’s moving into an apartment, assuming he got a job.

Ellen: [01:29:00] If you’re, she says, if you’re being held back or forced into a situation, you do whatever you can to break free and survive. I don’t know what the name of the music, oh, it’s, it’s “Eye of the Storm” by Monsters and Men.

I don’t know. I didn’t recognize the song, but it’s about facing your shadows and. Probably getting out of a trap, I imagine.

Bex: Seems apt.

Ellen: Yes. So, traps don’t look the same to everyone, Abby says. Especially not from inside one. And escape isn’t always the default. And, once in a while, the very thing everyone thinks is holding us back is what makes us feel at home.

Bex: And at this point of the montage, we’ve reached Abby, who is waking up in the morning. And she gets out of bed, puts her glasses on, walks across the room to the French doors that separate her bedroom from the [01:30:00] living room slash Patricia’s room, and she just stares. And then in this little voice just says, “Mom?”

And then goes up to the bed and the camera pulls back so that we can see that Patricia is lying in the bed and she has passed during the night. And Abby is absolutely distraught because I think she might be free from her trap but she really didn’t want to be, because freedom means the death of her mother.

Ellen: Yeah, this scene is so heartbreaking.

Alice: It’s so sad.

Ellen: And that’s the end of the episode and we’re left with a sad one.

Bex: We’re left sad, and it’s the next episode is the finale for season one.

Ellen: Oh my gosh. Yeah, it’s an, it’s an interesting message at the end there because, you know, she was saying that you know, a lot of the time, a situation that you’re trapped in is what feels most familiar, I guess.

[01:31:00] I mean, in a way, a lot of people are probably do find themselves in situations they can’t get out of, and not because they are unable to get out of the situation, it’s just because they don’t want to, would you say?

Bex: I think it’ll be interesting. I think a lot of Abby’s life has been so wrapped up in her mother for so long that, and everything that she does in her day to day and her week to week is driven by taking care of Patricia.

Now she doesn’t have to take care of Patricia anymore. What is she going to do? What’s going to give her life meaning now?

Ellen: Hmm. I have a feeling we’re about to find out.

Bex: Well, considering the next episode is called “A Whole New You.”

Ellen: Yeah. Seems likely.

Bex: Yeah.

Alice: Yeah. I really liked this episode. [01:32:00] Especially after the one that I definitely didn’t like last week.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: It was the same format of, you know, every storyline that we came across in this episode was about people being trapped. And I know that we joked about, you know, every time someone literally said the word trapped, we would, you know, take a shot. But I think they did it, it was a much more subtle way, much less in your face way than, you know, “Karma’s a Bitch.”

Alice: And it all like built up to this whole thing. And then Abby’s mom dies. Like, Buck accepts it. And like, it honestly, I didn’t expect her to pass this episode. Like, I think leading up to my first time watching, I think I expected it in the next episode.

Bex: Not right at the end of this one.

Alice: And not at the end of this one. And like, you know, Buck’s like, “yep, I’m here with you. I’m all in.” And then, it’s just over.

Bex: I think that was the other thing that was kind of missing from “Karma’s a Bitch” in that, even though this was another one of those all the storylines are on [01:30:00] theme, there was still like an A story tying them all together, running throughout the episode.

So every time you cut back to Buck and Abby, it was moving their story forward until you got to the end of the episode. It wasn’t just a bunch of random people being trapped that had no connection to each other other than everyone was trapped.

Alice: Yeah, and like, we got the awesome moments with Hen and Athena, like it wasn’t just glossed over, like

Ellen: Yeah, I don’t think there were still any whole cast scenes in this episode.

I mean, a couple of the obviously the, the garbage truck scene, they were all there, but, well, some of the emergencies they were all there for, but they didn’t ever, like, all sit down and have a dinner or anything.

Bex: [01:34:00] The other good thing was that they all got decent chunk of screen time. Like the previous episode, Buck had like three lines.

At the beginning of this episode, I was a little concerned because it didn’t look like Chimney was getting a lot of airtime. But then he got to do the cool diehard crawl through the hoarder’s house.

Alice: Yeah, he, he got his hero moment. Like he got to go talk … like he, he did like disarm the trap. Yeah.

And he spoke to Cecil and he found, like Winslow.

Ellen: Yeah, he did a lot of good paramedic-ing.

Bex: He did not! (laughs)

Ellen: I mean, he did a lot of bad paramedic-ing, but he got an opportunity to do that.

Bex: But I guess the point is that none of the members were forgotten. Everybody got their little moment to shine in this episode. It wasn’t the entire focus on one particular character, one particular storyline.

Which in case you hadn’t noticed this was a different writer than the previous episode.

Alice: [01:35:00] Thank God. And the pacing was good too. Like there wasn’t just like, like it didn’t go from the most heartbreaking scene. Like, imagine if it had gone from like Athena’s sex scene to Hen and Eva’s talk,

Bex: Athena’s sex scene to Patricia dying.

Alice: Yeah. Like we went from Athena, like letting Aaron down gently to Hen’s scene with Eva

Bex: Hen letting Eva down not so gently.

Alice: Yeah. And then to Abby. So like we had like, there was humor, but the sad parts all, it was

Bex: like the flow was good. It was well written. It was well paced. It flowed. And yeah, I was not looking at this going, Holy shit, we’ve still got 12 minutes of this episode to go.

I’m done.

Alice: Yeah, I didn’t get whiplash, like…

Bex: [01:36:00] So we’ll have to so this episode was written, The story was by Adam Glass, and the teleplay was by Aristotle Kousakis. I’ll have to keep an eye out for those two. See if they write any other future episodes.

Alice: Yeah, definitely. yeah, the only character that didn’t really get, like, a huge storyline this week was Bobby.

Like, he had his heart to heart with Buck, and he had, like, some Captainy moments, but after last week’s, that didn’t feel out of place, because he had a huge, like, life changing, like, life altering thing last week. So it’s okay for him to sort of take the back seat. Like, he was still in it, and he still had his very in character, like, What are you doing about these elevators?

Yes.

Ellen: But he still got to be dad to Buck. And give him the, you know, advice.

Bex: Yes. So when this show is written well, it is a very good show. That’s it. It’s so good. It’s just unfortunately

Ellen: [01:37:00] Yeah, I’m sure every, every show has its ups and downs. According to

Alice: Don’t, don’t we know?

Bex: And especially when you’ve got a show where you have a writer’s room and it’s not, for example, Aaron Sorkin writing every single episode of every single season.

When you don’t have one writer, you are going to get ups and downs depending on which writer you’ve got writing this episode.

Ellen: Mm hmm.

Bex: A good writer’s room would try to minimize the difference so you shouldn’t be able to look at an episode and go, oh, it’s by this writer. Which unfortunately is what happens sometimes.

Ellen: Yeah. Well next episode being the finale for season one, we would love for you to send us some feedback of what you thought of the first season. You can write it down and email it to us. [01:38:00] Our email address is: contact (at) that weewooshow.com. Or you can record a message on your phone or however you record audio and send that to us.

You can leave comments on our website, on each of the posts. They’re the website’s thatweewooshow.com surprisingly.

Alice: You can message us on Twitter.

Ellen: Yeah. There’s so many ways you can get in touch with us. We’d love to hear from you. So. Please send us all of your feedback. I think we have to have a deadline for that feedback because we’re going to record that episode in not, we need to record it ahead of time because our dear Bex is getting on a plane and going to a Supernatural convention in the States.

So if you would send us your feedback by the, by June 14, which when you are hearing this episode will only be in a few days time, but if you can get, get your thoughts into us [01:39:00] as soon as you can, that would be awesome because then we will be able to read them out when we record that episode,

Bex: Or play them, if you leave us a voice message.

Ellen: Yeah. So here’s your call to action. Go do that.

Alice: We have a couple already, which is exciting, but yeah, we’d love some more

Ellen: brilliant. Next episode, Episode 10 is called “A Whole New You”. Bex, do you want to read out the summary?

Bex: All right. The summary is the first responders get personal on an all new season finale.

How can you have a new season finale? Oh, good Lord. Anyway, the first responders take calls to help an unusual domestic disturbance. A quote unquote death at a psychic’s and an absolutely horrific motorcycle crash. Meanwhile, Bobby dips his toe into the dating pool, [01:40:00] Abby takes a walk down memory lane, Buck is confronted by his past actions, and Athena tries to start her new life.

And triggers for that episode, in case you haven’t watched it and are thinking of we have a man who is alive but not alive during an autopsy. We have a decomposed corpse. We have mortuary processes. We have extreme gore. With absolutely horrific motorcycle accident.

Ellen: Alright we’re nearly there. We’re nearly at the end.

Alice: We’re nearly at We’re nearly at Eddie. I mean, what?

Ellen: Excellent. All right. So, well thank you very much for listening to this episode and we’ll talk to you next time for episode 10, “A Whole New You”. See ya.

Alice: Bye.

Bex: Bye.

[outro music with Ellen’s voice over: 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]

Bex: They’re just firefighters,

Ellen: be proper Australian. I have totally called this guy the garbo through the whole of this episode.

Alice: I think, I feel like we should keep that in because it’s very Australian.

Ellen: Yeah, why not?

Bex: Hang on. I’m just going to check my notes. I’m pretty sure I have too. Yeah. “Bobby tells Buck they’re going to have to get in front of him, which Buck likes the sound of, so he speeds up and cuts the garbage truck off, forcing him to stop. The garbo’s all, what the hell, guys?”

Ellen: Excellent.

Bex: Garbage truck driver is too many words. Garbo’s like five letters. Garbage truck drivers.

Alice: Yeah, what do you, what do they call them in America?

Bex: Waste, like, sanitation workers? I guess.

Alice: Yeah, that’s way too many. Garbo.

Ellen: I think that, I think the closed captions do actually say garbage man or something at one point.

Yeah, garbage man, yeah. That’s what the closed captions. I’m like, no, Garbo, come on. Garbage man sounds like the name of a superhero.

Bex: Garbage man!

[second outtake]

Bex: And we have a funeral.

Ellen: Right.

Bex: Alice, what the hell does “press F to pay respects” mean?

Alice: Oh, you haven’t seen, that’s why people say F in chat when people die. It’s a Call of Duty thing.

Okay. They’re at a funeral and you like walk up to the headstone and it’s like, press F to pay your respects. (laughs)

And that’s why there’s like, a whole bunch of emotes that are just like, the F key. (more laughing)