Welcome to That Weewoo Show: a podcast where Bex, Alice, and Ellen watch and discuss every episode of ABC’s TV show, 9-1-1.
In this episode we discuss episode 1 of the fourth season of 9-1-1, titled “The New Abnormal”
The 118 races to save lives when the Hollywood Reservoir dam breaks and adjust to life as first responders during the pandemic. Bobby worries if Athena is ready for field duty since recovering from her injuries.
Content warnings for episode 4.01:
COVID pandemic, discussion of and depiction of a traumatic brain injury, car accident, a character on the Autism spectrum who identifies as a “proud Aspie”, claustrophobia via the threat of being buried alive, flashbacks to physical assault, gore, depiction of grief, collapse of a house, natural disaster (earthquake causes mudslides/landslide, depiction of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Mentioned in this episode:
- 9-1-1’s LAPD consultant: https://www.thewrap.com/911-consultant-season-4-cheryl-dorsey-athena-angela-bassett-lapd-police-brutality/
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Our intro music is “Tensions” by Northern Points.
Episode Transcript
Maddie: [00:00:00] 9-1-1, what’s your emergency?
Ellen: Welcome back to That WeeWoo Show, a podcast where we watch and discuss episodes of the A B C show, 9-1-1. I’m Ellen.
Alice: I’m Alice.
Bex: And I’m Bex.
Ellen: And welcome to season four.
Bex: So excited.
Ellen: Here we are in season four. Um, thank you to everyone who’s been listening to our previous seasons and has been sharing our social media posts and rating us on all of the platforms.
Um, we are gonna get stuck into some season four. We’ve got lots of cool stuff planned for this season, since this season seems to be the favorite of the people who have already watched the show, and I’m quite excited to do it as well get into it. But before we do that, uh, Alice, do you wanna remind us what happened last season?
Alice: Yeah. So last season on 9-1-1, we [00:01:00] survived a tsunami, a lawsuit, an illegal fight club, an awful traffic stop, a radiation fire, a brain tumor, the foster system, a train derailment, and a violent rapist. All in 18 episodes
Ellen: and we’re still alive?
Alice: Still alive? Yep.
Bex: In this episode, we are going to discuss the premier episode of season four, titled “The New Abnormal”, which first aired January 18th, 2021. And the official summary says that the 118 race to save lives. When the Hollywood Reservoir Dam breaks Bobby and the 118 race into action, allegedly to save passengers on a city bus that has crashed into a building, several stories in the air, Maddie must first locate and then rescue a trapped cyclist, and Athena helps an agoraphobic woman evacuate her home.
Meanwhile, the team adjusts to life as [00:02:00] first responders during the pandemic. Bobby worries if Athena is ready for field duty. Since recovering from her physical and psychological injuries, chimney takes extreme precautions around a pregnant Maddie and May begins a surprising new job.
Holy shit. That’s a massive promo summary.
Ellen: It is. They’ve just basically sum summed up everything that was happening at the end of the last,
Alice: like that’s the entire episode.
Ellen: We don’t even have to
Alice: Yeah, that’s it. That’s, you’re welcome. We’re done.
Ellen: We don’t have to talk about it. It’s done.
Alice: Yeah, no, uh, stay tuned next week for
Bex: I, I’m pretty sure that you can guess what the triggers would be based on that extensive summary, but we’ll go through them anyway. Um, discussion of and depiction of a, uh, traumatic brain injury, a car accident, sort of it, the the trigger document calls it bus versus office building. I’m not sure which one comes off the winner in that, um, [00:03:00] character on the Autism spectrum, who identifies as a “proud Aspie”, which we will get into later on, uh, claustrophobia via the threat of being buried alive.
Flashbacks to physical assault, uh, Demion the dragon’s favorite, gore, being a tourniquet applied to a femoral artery. Depiction of grief, collapse of a house and natural disaster. Earthquake causes mudslides slash landslide. Also depiction of post-traumatic stress disorder. There is also a very general trigger for the pandemic.
So this season takes place, quote unquote post 2020 pandemic, but it’s like a kinder, gentler, not the pandemic that the Americans lived through. As it seemed to last much, much shorter. And everyone is act. Everyone on the show is depicted as taking necessary [00:04:00] precautions. Masks are worn. Um, people talk about COVID.
There is a depiction in this episode of a death from COVID. Um, sanitizer is used liberally. Um, so if you are still a little bit iffy about living through said pandemic, season four might not be the season for you.
Ellen: Gee it brought back a few things though,
Alice: Didn’t it just? Like we still do have hand sanitizer everywhere in retail, but yeah, I think we’ve just mainly kept it because we deal with animals a lot and so it’s easier just to grab some hand sanitizer on the desk than run and wash our hands after every client interaction.
Ellen: I mean, I still often see people, you know, grabbing the sanitizer and putting it on their trolleys before they go into the supermarket and stuff like that.
Alice: Oh, I haven’t seen that in a while. But then when was the last time I went to…
Ellen: People still do it here,
Bex: although we are five years out from the pandemic. [00:05:00]
Alice: Yeah, but there’s still like traces of it too.
Bex: Yeah. So when season four started filming, so episode one, which aired in January, was filmed um, September, October of 2020. So still mid pandemic.
Alice: Yeah. Yeah.
Bex: So you can imagine that a lot of, um, a lot of what the characters are shown to be doing is just what the actors themselves would be required to do in order to come onto set.
Alice: Yeah, I absolutely think ’cause a lot of TV shows that we’re like airing around this time did the whole COVID thing. Like I think I mentioned Superstore in another episode, um, also had a mask season. Um, I think Brooklyn Nine Nine does too. And I think a lot of it was. Like, yes, they were like mirroring the real world, but I think a lot of it was also just COVID safe practices on set as well.
Ellen: I, I just love [00:06:00] the, the time progression. Like, okay, so this episode has, it does that thing where it’s got a number of like, skip skip backs. Like we start at the disaster, but then we skip back to an hour before and then we skip back to two hours before and then we, you know, they keep doing it.
Alice: Yeah. It’s a timey-whimey episode,
Ellen: it’s just frustrating at times.
Bex: It’s timey-whimey, but at least they tell us where we’re going.
Alice: They tell us that it’s timey-whimey.
Bex: And when we, and when we suddenly get back to present, they’ll be like, they’ll repeat a scene. Um, or they’ll, they’ll do an overlap, they’ll repeat the scene so that we go, oh, okay, now we’re back to present.
Yeah. So it’s timey-whimey, but it’s structured timey-whimey
Ellen: yeah.
Bex: Which I appreciate. Um, so yeah, the first thing we see in this episode is a caption that lets us know that we are in September. So there’s been a five month time jump since the end of season three. Um, [00:07:00] and if you didn’t get it from the caption, the, uh, needle drop for the, the first, for the opening of season four is Earth, Wind and Fire’s “Dancing in September”.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: I cannot con, I cannot confirm nor deny that this actually takes place in the 21st night of September. Um, but it’s definitely September,
Alice: uh, which is interesting as well, because normally they sort of try and keep close to when it’s airing, but it airs in January and it’s filming in September.
Bex: Yeah. But then they would’ve had to do that thing where they’re trying to do like a weekly turnaround, which at this stage they weren’t doing.
Alice: Oh, no, no. I know that they weren’t like they were, but they were filming in September, and so they like set it in September. Whereas normally even if they’re filming in September, like if they’re airing it in January, they’ll set the episode in January.
Like they’re not, when they’re doing the [00:08:00] October episodes for Halloween, they film that well before. But yeah, it’s interesting that they’re airing are just setting it where they’re, when they’re filming it, rather than when they’re airing it this time.
Bex: I guess if you, because if they set it in January, pretty much Maddie would have a baby by now.
Alice: Yeah. So I guess they had to time.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. They had to,
Bex: way too much would’ve happened offscreen. They needed to bring it back to September so they could have some things still be on screen
Ellen: When I heard hear this song playing. Um. I’m going back to the September song now. Um, I just think of Justin Timberlake because he did that version for, I think it was for the Trolls movie.
Bex: Oh.
Ellen: And that’s,
Bex: I’m so sorry.
Ellen: That’s the one I think of. I dunno why it’s not until you said Earth, Wind and Fire. I’m like, oh, that it’s got an original version. Of course it does.
Bex: Yes.[00:09:00]
Ellen: Ah, that’s terrible.
Alice: Whenever I hear this song now, there was a TikTok video, um, that was like, do you remember? No. And then it just stops and then it’s No, I’m like, yeah. Yep. That’s,
Ellen: yeah, that’s relatable.
Alice: Living with ADHD.
Ellen: Anyway, we do get a bunch of shots of around LA where there’s like no people or very few people around.
And the new, like, someone’s listening to the radio obviously, and they’ve got like a news anchor telling everybody “It’s a very good morning. The, the mayor’s office and the CDC are reporting low record, low infection rates for LA County.” It’s like, did that really happen? ’cause I think they had quite a high infection rates.
Bex: No, that’s, that’s why the, the trigger document says is that I could send idealized, it’s a kind, a gentler pandemic where they managed to get record lows [00:10:00] within sort of five or six months. Rather than, you know. How America
Ellen: dragging out for years?
Bex: Actually Yeah. So they kind of had probably an the austral, an Australian pandemic.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Well I do like how the, the news also goes on to say we’ve reorganized our closets and, and rearranged the pantry and learned how to make sourdough. I like, oh yeah, that’s right.
Alice: Yeah. Sort of learned how to make sourdough.
Ellen: Everyone was, that was the trend at the time.
Alice: It’s funny too, because when COVID first started, like, I’m talking like February, March, 2020, uh, my brother was actually living in California.
Ellen: Oh.
Bex: Oh.
Alice: And so he got shipped back to Australia real fast because they were worried that he’d be stuck over there. Uh, ’cause he was there for work and so he was supposed to be there for six months. He was there for like two
Bex: and so his work recalled him. Thank God for that.
Alice: Yeah. Right? His work were real good, thank goodness.
But, um, but mom and I were going over there to see him for my mom, like for our mom’s birthday. [00:11:00] And we were, we were paying to take her to Disneyland, um, ’cause we haven’t been to America before. It was gonna be like this big birthday present for her and then everything locked down.
Bex: Yeah.
Alice: And so my brother was home before our, like, our flight was even supposed to leave and we were just like, yep, cool. Um, have to cancel that flight ’cause we no longer have anywhere to stay.
Ellen: Yes. Canceled a lot of plans out of that one.
Alice: Now the closest I’ve been to going to LA is in GTA.
Bex: While the news anchor is talking about how great it is that life is returning back to normal. Um, we see a woman exit her house dressed for cycling.
She’s got like spandex, the, the funky gloves, funky sunglasses, the bike helmet. And then she puts on a mask just to like really drive home that this is like COVID times and starts riding through the hills of LA through the streets of LA and across the top of the Hollywood [00:12:00] Reservoir Dam.
Ellen: And, uh, as she rides past a truck, which is the Power Department people, um, there’s, there’s a guy there who’s on the phone and he’s talking to somebody and, and he says like, “That’s why they call them micro-quakes. They’re small.” Because apparently they’ve been having earthquakes during this time as well.
Bex: Yeah, COVID wasn’t enough. They also had to have a, a natural disaster thrown in as well.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: So we don’t even have to wait for the disaster episode in this season. It just gets right into it because as the ladies riding along, um, one of the micro quakes actually come hits and, um, she stops because there in the middle of the road ahead of her is like a chunk of like concrete and then she hears this noise behind her and as she turns around, there’s like a, there’s water rushing down the road. Oh yeah. And I love this. She’s like, [00:13:00] she tells Siri to call 9-1-1. I don’t know when.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: Siri first started to be able to do that. But that is such a neat thing that it can do,
Bex: I think. I think most voice activated, um, assistants on phones can do that now. They can contact emergency services for you, which is excellent because it means that if you are, like, if you don’t, if you can’t reach your phone, if you’re unable to type in the number, you can at least yell at your phone and it will call someone for you.
Alice: Yeah. I’ve done it with while driving a couple times. Like, um, I used to work right near this massive intersection that was like five or six roads or like crossing each other.
Bex: Oh, I hate those. They’re just recipes for disaster.
Alice: Oh, it was awful. And the traffic lights went out so regularly and so like I’d go out to get lunch at the supermarket that was on the corner of it, and if the traffic lights were out, I’d just tell Siri to call Triple zero and be like, yep, cool. “I’m at this intersection, the [00:14:00] traffic lights are out.” And they’d be like, “cool, we’ll send the police down.” I’m like, thank you.
Ellen: Well, I mean now if you’ve got an Apple watch and you fall over, it’ll call the emergency services for you.
Bex: Um, so the woman who’s we, we find out her name is Janelle. So I’m just gonna call her Janelle from now to, to make it easier, um, calls 9-1-1 and I’m now starting our official worst calls, uh, worst 9-1-1 calls of the season. Uh, because she tells Linda that the damn dam is falling down.
Alice: I actually really like this one. Like as much as the, it’s like super corny. I’d probably say the same thing.
Ellen: The damn dam,
Alice: like if you’re annoyed and like, like there’s water everywhere, like the damn dam.
And at least she starts the call with the dam at the Hollywood Reservoir.
Bex: She does give Linda the location. Yes. Look, I’m not saying it’ll make it in the top three, but it, it hits the short list, right? Yeah.[00:15:00]
Alice: But yes, so the damn dam is coming down.
Ellen: Yeah. And she’s like pedaling as hard as she can to get away from the water that’s cut rapidly approaching from behind. And, as she’s still tr trying to tell Linda what’s going on, she’s, the water overtakes her and she’s like, “I’m not gonna make it!”
Bex: Then we go to the title card.
When we come back from the title card, we’re jumping back two hours before this happened. You get the caption that says two hours before the dam break and we are eavesdropping on Maddie and Chim’s morning Zoom call or FaceTime. I actually think it is.
Ellen: Yeah. This, this took me back. Uh, this is when Zoom first became like big more popular.
Yeah. Yeah. It was around before, but yeah, everyone started using it at this point, so I was surprised that at first I was surprised that Maddie and [00:16:00] Chim were separated, and talking to each other on Zoom. And then when I realized where Chim is, um, it made a lot more sense.
Bex: Yeah. So obviously the 118 created, like they have their bubble takes you back when you go, like your essential workers creating your bubbles of people that you work with.
So they’ve all, they were all at Buck’s because they had their little bubble that was going to work and so they were coming back. Also keeping in mind that Maddie is pregnant, so she would therefore be high risk. So Chim definitely wouldn’t wanna be going anywhere near her, at least to start with.
Ellen: Yeah. I’m just wondering if Buck’s is the biggest or, you know,
Bex: it’s not though.
Alice: Buck’s got a, he’s got a studio, like it’s a loft.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Like he has one bed. Yes, he has two bathrooms, but he’s got one bed. So like, who’s sleeping on the couch? Who’s sleeping in the bed?
Bex: That’s why I had [00:17:00] a note down, like, can we talk about sleeping arrangements? Um, I don’t, I honestly don’t think it’s because of size.
I think it’s because literally Buck had nobody else in the apartment.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: So every, everybody else, so Maddie moved in to Chimney’s apartment so that she didn’t have to keep living on the streets in, you know, her delicate condition, um,
Alice: or in Chimney’s drawer. She’s been upgraded to the bedroom
Bex: Hen had Karen and the kids, um, Eddie had Christopher, assuming that they let him come back from summer camp. Um, so everybody had somebody at home that was, could be put at risk of these guys.
Alice: But where was Chris? Like, was Chris staying at his, at Eddie’s Abuelas?
Ellen: Yeah. Don’t they? We never…
Bex: I don’t know where he went. Don’t
Ellen: hear about that.
Bex: They don’t, they don’t tell us. But again, he would be like, he’s, I’m assuming that having CP he would be like [00:18:00] immunocompromised.
So you definitely…
Alice: yeah, he’d be high risk. Surely.
Bex: Yeah. So Eddie would not wanna be coming home to him every night being out and about mid pandemic? Um, I, I don’t know. They, they never actually tell us. We just know that as we get later on the dialogue, that at some point the pandemic is quote unquote over.
So Eddie goes home to Christopher, but we never actually find out where Christopher was that entire time. But yes. Sleeping arrangements,
Alice: Makes some good fan fiction.
Bex: Which I, I would love to know what they thought that that was gonna do. Like, I’m assuming, like in my brain it’s Buck and Eddie upstairs and Shim and Hen like on blow up mattresses in the living room.
Ellen: I was sort of thinking they just give Hen the bed and the boys are just all asleep down stairs on the floor.
Bex: You, that’s, that’s another, that’s another combination I hadn’t thought of.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: I mean they all share the bunk room at work together anyway, so [00:19:00]
Bex: Yeah. But that’s like separate beds.
Ellen: Um, so yeah.
Has Bobby been going home to Athena the whole time?
Alice: I guess so, because there’s no children there.
Bex: I’m gonna say that they’re, I mean, they’re both first responders, so they’re both sort of going out.
Ellen: Yeah. But Athena hasn’t been,
Alice: yeah, Athena hasn’t been working,
Ellen: she’s been home the whole time.
Bex: Maybe Bobby’s been sleeping at Buck’s as well.
Alice: No, I don’t think Bo Bobby would’ve wanted to leave Athena.
Ellen: Hmm. Yeah. Well maybe they’ve got a similar thing going on.
Bex: So many questions that they just didn’t
Ellen: Well, we just didn’t need to know that obviously. It’s just, if when you start thinking about it harder, you’re like,
Bex: no, it’s, it’s, it’s, yeah. It’s not 100%, it’s not relevant to the story.
Ellen: No, not relevant.
Bex: Um, just like. I’m putting my clown makeup on here. Um, like, oh, does that mean Buck and Eddie were sharing a bed for months? Um, [00:20:00]
Ellen: I wonder if this is like a fanfic writer affliction. Like we, we need to know the details. Like we think about all the possible possibilities.
Bex: I don’t know. Um,
Ellen: anyway, um, anyway, Chim and Maddie are having a conversation on Zoom.
Alice: They’re having a fight about coffee.
Ellen: Well, that’s
Bex: I’m Maddie’s side.
Ellen: because Albert appears in the, in the back of Maddie’s picture and hands her a peppermint tea. But Maddie’s like, “That’s not peppermint tea that… You are drinking coffee. I can smell it. Give it to me.”
Bex: It’s because apparently Albert has moved in with Maddie into Chimney’s apartment.
Alice: Well, Albert was already living in Chimney’s apartment, so,
Bex: But was he? Like, was
Alice: Yeah, he was sleeping, still there. Sleeping in the lounge room? I guess so. There was like,
Ellen: I guess he never left.
Bex: But there was like several episodes where we just, we
Alice: they forgot about him. But he was still there,
Bex: yeah, they forgot about Albert. Um, okay, so [00:21:00] Maddie,
Alice: He was out having booty calls every night. It’s fine.
Bex: Apparently. Um, so yes, apparently Chimney has gone like overprotective. Maddie is just an incubator. She can’t do anything that’s going to affect the fetus, even though Maddie’s own doctor, the one who has actually studied the growth and development of children has said that Maddie, having one cup of coffee is fine.
Ellen: Look, I’ve tried to give up coffee before and it was an extremely painful experience. I don’t ever wanna do that again. I did drink coffee during pregnancy and my children are fine. Apparently sometimes they go to sleep. They don’t often sleep, but you know,
Bex: I drank coffee, I drank wine, I had sushi, I had soft cheese.
Alice: And your children are alive?
Bex: Apparently.
Alice: Good. We did [00:22:00] hear them thudding upstairs. So yes, can vouch that, um, the children are alive.
Bex: Um, so while um, Maddie and Chimney are fighting through the Zoom screen about coffee, we get an appearance from Buck as well. Um, yeah, who sticks his face, who gets told by Chimney to, um, to go stick his face in his own FaceTime and to, to keep out of his and Maddie’s argument because, uh, Buck is 100% on Maddie’s side and thinks that Chimney is overreacting.
Buck’s response is that he should pull the plug on Chim’s FaceTime because he should be bickering with Maddie in his own kitchen. Because Eddie and Hen went back to their kids months ago, Chim is still the only one going all World War Z and like kudos to Buck for the pop culture reference.
Alice: I know, right? Look at him. He must have watched a movie while Chim’s at his house.
Bex: Either that or [00:23:00] someone made the reference around him and he is just kind of like locked it in as like, oh, this is where, this is where we talk about it’s being like World War Z. He has no idea what World War Z is, but he knows that it’s the correct reference to use.
Alice: I guarantee Eddie used it and he was just like, oh, Eddie makes pop culture references. Eddie has a silver star.
Ellen: So Eddie and Hen went back to their kids months ago. So, and this is only five months after the end of season three.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: So like obviously the pandemic really wasn’t that bad there
Bex: lasted what, like two or three months?
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Well they decided it wasn’t worth being in a bubble anymore going home.
Bex: I don’t know.
Ellen: It’s to sleep in my own bed instead of on Buck’s couch.
Bex: So Chimney fires back at Buck, and says, ” We’re bantering playfully. Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be upstairs talking to your new COVID crush?”
It’s kind of an awkward segue, but it does introduce the information that [00:24:00] apparently Buck has been spending hours of time talking to a woman through a webcam, which Albert is absolutely, this is news to him and he is astonished that Buck could meet a woman during the pandemic. And he wants to know his secret,
Ellen: and he sort of brushes it off. He’s like, “I don’t have a secret.” So he, their, their shift’s about to start, so they need to get going. And so he disappears. And Maddie’s like, “He’s not wrong. Like, we were, I moved in here and we were supposed to live together.” And Chim’s like, “yeah, I know, but you know, we need to be safe.” And Maddie’s not not having it.
She’s like, “We just take precautions like everyone else does.” So obviously Chim’s extremely, what’s the word?
Bex: He’s hypervigilant. He’s paranoid. Like
Ellen: Paranoid. That’s the word I was thinking of.
Bex: Like, hypochondriac. Even though it’s, it’s not for himself, it’s just he’s completely over the top. [00:25:00]
Ellen: Mm-hmm.
Bex: I do like that Maddie kind of takes this opportunity to start having a little sort of sexy talk. ’cause she’s sort of very flirtatiously says to Chim, like, “Would it be so bad if we had to strip down at the end of the day?” And first there’s a moment where Chim like starts to, you can see on his face, he’s like, oh yeah, let’s, let’s. And then he remembers that Albert’s in the room and his face just falls.
And he goes like, “Is my brother still there?” And off camera, we could just hear, go and Albert go, “Uh, I’m not listening.” Which means he’s totally listening.
Alice: He’s absolutely listening.
Bex: Um, at this point. Maddie feels the baby kick and stands up to give Chim and the audience a belly shot. So if you didn’t get that we’ve had a time jump, um, this size of Maddie’s belly definitely lets you know that there’s been a time jump because the last time we saw her, she was like peeing on a stick and now she’s huge.
Ellen: [00:26:00] Yeah. And I’m glad that we, we identified already that this, she’s really pregnant in this because she looks at gorgeous.
She’s
Bex: She’s not yet. She’s not yet? This is a this is a prosthetic.
Ellen: What? I thought you said she was really pregnant.
Bex: No, not yet.
Ellen: Not yet?
Bex: No. Not because her, we went through this in the last episode. Her kid was born in like August or September, so of 2021. Oh, so she would be barely pregnant in this? She would not have that belly.
Alice: Well, she wouldn’t be pregnant at all. ’cause this is September slash October. Yes. 2020.
Bex: Yes.
Alice: Oh, there you go. Also, I forgot that she had a daughter named Autumn.
Bex: It’s, it’s one of those things, we talked about it where I was wondering, did they write this storyline for Maddie knowing that she was… Like knowing that Jennifer Love Hewitt was pregnant, they would need to cut, like work out an excuse for the [00:27:00] change in her body shape and a possible, um, absence from the show.
Or was it simply because she was a woman in a relationship and pregnancy is just the next logical storyline for her? And I think it was, it was the sec It was the latter, but then Jennifer got pregnant and it just sort of all tied in nicely that they could, could,
Ellen: I thought, I thought you meant that she was now pregnant. Like by the time they actually recorded it.
Bex: Not at this point. She might be like four weeks pregnant in real life at this point when they’re recording. Um, or she might be about to get pregnant. Um, but she’s not like six months pregnant.
Alice: Oh, she’s to, to get pregnant. If they were filming in in September, October, then yeah, she’s not pregnant yet. ’cause the baby was born in September, like a year later.
Ellen: The following year. Yeah.
Alice: Yeah. So maybe play like having the belly, the baby bump on. She was just like, oh, let’s have another one.
Bex: I don’t know. It’s just, it’s it’s a strange, it’s, it’s like, um, oh, what [00:28:00] the fuck is that phrase?
Alice: Life imitates art?
Bex: Yay. There we go. Thank you. That’s what I was looking for. It’s life imitating art.
Ellen: Yeah. Okay.
Bex: And apparently the baby is kicking because the baby likes coffee.
Alice: Yeah. Chim says the baby’s the size of a mango and the mango doesn’t get a say, but Maddie says the mango misses Daddy.
Ellen: Awww,
Bex: it’s, it’s a very, it’s a very cute scene. I lo, I mean, I wanted to punch Chimney’s face in for most of it. Um, but like their banter backwards and forwards and the way that Albert just kept sort of inserting himself into their dynamic.
Alice: Oh, I love the fact that, so like, at the end as they’re signing off, um, Chim’s like, “I love you both.” And then Albert’s like, “Love you too, bro. Oh, he, he probably met you and the baby.”
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: And he’s very, he’s reassuring, he’s obviously looking after Maddie pretty well. Yeah. ’cause he’s like, he’s [00:29:00] reassuring her that Howard will be home soon. It’s like, I thought you called him Chim like everyone else. Albert.
Bex: Um, he says that, uh, Howard Chimney is just scared and Maddie responds, “isn’t everyone?” And then we get a nice cut to the Athena residence where Athena
Alice: is scared.
Bex: Has taken Yeah, she’s, she’s scared. She’s taken her, her badge out of her dresser drawer and she’s staring at it, and as she’s staring at it, we, she gets, she’s remembering, uh, the last time she wore that badge, which was when she was brutally attacked by Jeffrey, the realtor rapist, the end of last season.
Ellen: Um, and there’s a knock on the door and, and Bobby’s there and he. He says, “okay, they’re on.”
Bex: And we get another Zoom call.
Ellen: Harry and Michael are on this, on Zoom or FaceTime or whatever. I swear to God, Harry has grown up like a whole [00:30:00] lot in the last five months. He looks a lot bigger to me.
Bex: Well, it would’ve been the last time we saw him would’ve been January. January of that year. So if it’s now October, it’s 10 months.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: So, wow. Yeah. Kids grow. Yeah. Um, but the, our now grownup Harry is sitting there in a suit and tie.
Ellen: Yeah, maybe that’s part of it. It looks like he’s going for a job interview.
Bex: And he tells Athena that he can’t talk for long because he’s got Zoom homeroom in like 10 minutes.
Athena assumes that the, the, the jacket and the tie means that he’s run out of his normal clothes because Michael’s forgotten to do laundry. And that was like the best that Harry could do. Um, and Michael’s just like, “No, I’ve done the laundry. Thank you very much. Little man. Just wanted to get dressed up today.”
Like very, very sort of smugly. Um, and I love that Bobby immediately recognizes [00:31:00] why.
Alice: Yeah. What’s her name? I love the, um, the Michael Bobby bestie-ism in this scene.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Even if Athena doesn’t.
Bex: Oh no. Athena’s pissed that her ex-husband and her husband are besties. Yeah, Harry is also pretty pissed at this point because, um, Bobby asks what’s her name and Michael answers and like, “It’s Tiana.” Harry’s like, “Oh my God, you guys suck.”
And that’s not me being like paraphrasing. He literally tells them that they suck.
Alice: Yeah,
Ellen: he gets that tween sass coming through.
Bex: But I also love that he’s got like the shirt and tie, but he is doing kind of the, the newsreader thing where he looks really professional from the waist up, but from the waist down he’s just in shorts, which absolutely scandalizes Athena. And she’s like, you know, um, “I take it back, I take everything back about thinking that was a good idea for you. Go live with your dad, go and [00:32:00] put some pants on.”
Alice: Um, yeah, so Harry’s staying with Michael. Um, David is also apparently staying with Michael because,
Bex: so where is May staying?
Alice: I think with Bobby and Athena,
Bex: because we don’t actually find that out, but yes. Um, David, the doctor has now moved in with Michael, so they move fast.
Ellen: Yeah. Where’s the dog? Didn’t he have a dog?
Alice: Oh my God. Yeah.
Bex: Where’s Oscar?
Alice: Where, where’s the dog?
Ellen: The dog’s gone?
Alice: Justice for Oscar. If it helps, Autumn just jumped up on my lap and was just like, yes. Hello. I am dog. I am here you are here darlin’. You’re such a good dog. Yes.
Bex: You’re not the dog we are worried about, but thank you.
Alice: But yes. Where’s Oscar?
Ellen: I hope Oscar’s there too somewhere.
Bex: I [00:33:00] don’t think we ever see a dog at Michael’s apartment.
Alice: No. What the hell?
Ellen: I think they just accidentally forgot about
Bex: 100%. They forgot about the dog.
Ellen: Whoops.
Alice: Justice for Oscar
Ellen: Don’t they hoped that we, they hope that we forgot about it.
Bex: We don’t forget about this shit.
Alice: Well, I didn’t until right then. Thanks, Ellen.
Ellen: You’re welcome. Um, so he’s, Athena asked him how everything’s in the ER and, uh, if they’re still overwhelmed, which I don’t know if the pandemic wasn’t that bad there, then maybe the hospitals could have coped with things other rather than get overwhelmed like they did.
But, um, he’s going, David’s gonna go and do a regular brain surgery today and then go back to the ER to help out, apparently.
Bex: And we find out through this conversation that it is going to be Athena’s first day back at work, which sort of explains the, um, [00:34:00] the staring at the, the badge a few minutes earlier, although when Michael, um, expresses that it seems like it’s a little bit sudden for her to go back to work suddenly Athena’s completely on board with going back to work.
She’s like, “It’s not like I haven’t been cooped up in here for six months.”
Alice: She’s totally fine you guys
Bex: To which Michael said, “I heard it was going good,” which immediately raises like red flags for Athena, like “You heard?”
Ellen: Hmm.
Bex: Because her husband’s been gossiping about her behind her back again.
Alice: Yeah. Not only that, but Michael also knows that they’ve got a little herb garden
Ellen: and he, and he knows that she’s on desk duty.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: And Athena’s like, “Sounds like you already knew about that.”
Bex: And then literally hangs up on him. I’m done. And Bobby’s, Bobby’s all like, “we still had 10 minutes left of that call. I had more things I wanted to talk to [00:35:00] Michael about.”
Alice: Yeah. Why you hanging it up on my bestie?
Bex: Athena’s all, “Maybe I should have left you on keep talking about me behind my back. Like I didn’t tell him about anything he just knew.”
Ellen: Yeah. Bobby’s like, “We are worried about you.” I’m like, oh, you guys. But Athena assures him that she’s ready to go back.
Alice: Um, yeah, this is where they mentioned May ’cause before Michael gets hung up on, Michael asks where May is and Bobby says she couldn’t wait to get out of here this morning. So yeah, she’s still staying with Bobby and Athena.
Bex: She’s staying with Athena. Yeah.
Ellen: Makes sense.
Bex: We also get, um, an interesting very quick reference, a very oblique, very quick reference that not only was 2020 the year of the pandemic, but 2020 was also the year of the massive Black Lives Matter protests, which simply just get referenced to “the protests.”
Alice: Yeah. God forbid [00:36:00] a, um, a TV show that, you know, features cops mention anything about. Anyway,
Bex: but interestingly as a, another tangent, ’cause God knows we haven’t had enough in this episode already, um, apparently post Black Lives Matter, um, Tim Minear hired a new consultant who is pretty much a real life, um, Athena.
She was, um, a black LAPD officer.
Alice: Oh, interesting.
Bex: So the idea that, so she would be there, that they could run everything past and make sure that they were, let me pull up the actual article so I get it correct. So they hired, um, has hired a woman named Cheryl Dorsey, who was a former LAPD field sergeant, who wrote a book called Black and Blue about police reform and racism amongst the police department.
Alice: Ooh. [00:37:00]
Bex: So Tim hired Cheryl as a consultant because he was interested in telling the stories, um, of a black woman on the streets as a field sergeant.
Alice: Okay, good. So even though they just sort of vague over it, they have been doing things behind the scenes at least.
Bex: Yeah. There’s a quote down here that says that, “The trick to show the issues of racial injustice is to do it in a sensitive, nuanced way.”
Um, which he thinks that they did last in last epi, last season with “Rage”. Um, they don’t want to use those kind of issues as, um, bait for the audiences. They wanna tell an honest story from Athena’s point of view, and that’s why they brought in Cheryl. So that’s from an article in The Wrap from, uh, January, 2021.
Ellen: Right. Good work, Tim.
Alice: Yeah. Don’t wanna bait the audience with [00:38:00]
Bex: Yeah. Heaven forbid you bait the audience.
Alice: Well, that side of the audience, the queers are fine to bait.
Bex: They also, apparently Bobby also mentions the fires. I’m not quite sure, I’m assuming there was like a massive California wildfire in the 2020.
Alice: To be fair, there’s always massive California wildfires. So, um, I actually thought it was weird when I first started watching the show, I was like, why aren’t they ever fighting wildfires in California? But they have given a reason. I just don’t remember what that reason is right now.
Bex: Yeah, Google can’t point me to one specific, just that there was a fire, there was a wildfire season.
So should we get onto an actual emergency now that we’ve reconnected with all our characters except for one.
Ellen: Yeah, let’s do that. Uh, so some people have gone back to work. I don’t know if the, like the, um, pandemic is officially over or whatever, but I feel at this stage everyone was still working at home [00:39:00] in the real world, but, um, and would be for some time to come after this.
But there are some people in this office building in the city. Um, Keith and Ashley are walking into the elevator, I feel like?
Bex: They come off the elevator and walk into a boardroom. And they’re both wearing masks. They’re wearing masks, and they both make a point of stopping by the, um, hand sanitizer station to grab some hand sanitizer.
Ellen: It can’t be easy to, to do a scene, like, to act with a mask on because like a lot of your acting ability is in your facial expressions and when half of your face is covered up, you can’t really see that.
Bex: It also means that everyone is slightly muffled for the entire episode. Yeah. ’cause they’re talking through a mask.
Yeah. But I, I really do appreciate that 9-1-1 went to the effort of going, you know what, it is realistic that the first, that people would be wearing [00:40:00] masks pretty much at all times. So we are gonna go with that.
Ellen: Yeah. They committed.
Bex: Like they have,
Alice: I’m definitely glad for subtitles though.
Bex: Yes, I do like that They also like splashed out and had branded masks.
So like the LAPD have like LAPD logos on the side of their masks.
Ellen: Yeah. Very fancy.
Bex: LAFD have LAFD branded masks.
Ellen: The rest of us had to just deal with our,
Bex: the surgical ones.
Ellen: Shitty surgical white ones.
Alice: I got a fabric one that had like the bottom of my dog’s face on it, so it looked like I had That was cute.
Ellen: That’s cute.
Alice: We did like a big fundraiser and had them watered.
Bex: So I feel like Ashley’s been working from home, but Keith hasn’t.
Ellen: Oh yeah. She talks about a Zoom call. A zoom meeting.
Bex: Yes. So the, apparently, I’m not entirely sure what industry these guys are in, but.
Alice: They, they do portfolio management,
Bex: something in finance? [00:41:00] Wealth management, I don’t know. Um,
Alice: yeah, they’d be doing like divestment stuff and investment stuff.
Bex: So the argument between these two is that Keith took a meeting with Ashley’s client or the client with whom Ashley is the primary on the account. And
Alice: yeah. But it’s also the biggest client of the, of the business.
Bex: And she’s pissed because with these meetings comes commissions. And so being sidelined from this meeting means that she’s missed out on all of the possible commissions that came from this meeting.
Ellen: Yeah. And his explanation is something like the client doesn’t like Zoom meetings and he wanted to come in in person to have a meeting.
Bex: So that’s why Keith and Jake took it, which just pisses
Alice: Jake being the intern who still doesn’t shave, like apparently Jake’s quite young.
Bex: Yeah. I love [00:42:00] Ashley. Keith starts, um, sort of trying to rationalize what happened and she just says, “You know what, Keith, I know you have a master’s in mansplaining, but please, I don’t want a lecture.” What she wants..
Alice: And he’s like, “Oh, what do you want?” And she’s like, “I want my commissions. Like how many times do I have to say it?”
Bex: And Keith’s like, “Oh, I don’t think Jake’s gonna like that.” And Ashley says, “Well, Keith can go crying into his sippy cup. I want 100% of the commissions and next time don’t throw me under the bus.” And Keith says, “I did not throw you under the bus!”
Ellen: And then he gets,
Alice: as they say that,
Ellen: and then he gets thrown under a bus because a bus, this, this caught me totally by surprise.
I’m just watching this like argument happening and then all of a sudden this freaking bus crashes through the window in the side of the building. And I’m like, oh.
Bex: So we have to emphasize that Keith and Ashley had to take an elevator, get to this [00:43:00] boardroom. So they are several stories up. There is no way that a bus should be, it’s not like they’re on a floor, on the ground floor where a bus could, you know, just come off the street through their front window.
There’s no way that a bus should be coming through their windows, I don’t think anybody anticipated that when Keith said he was throwing Ashley under the bus, that he was literally gonna be throwing a bus at her.
Ellen: Anyway, we are going straight in, crashing straight into a commercial. And um, after that it’s one hour before the dam break.
Bex: So we’ve moved forward slightly. ’cause we were two hours before. We are now one hour before.
Ellen: Well we’ve gone, we came back to the present because the bus was in the present after the dam broke.
So we’ve just gone back another hour. So we keep coming, we keep going back and then coming up to the, the dam break and then going back again, and then coming back up to the dam. [00:44:00]
Bex: So we are going to check in with the 118, uh, we’re at the station house and once again, they’ve got, they’re emphasizing the COVID protocols because we see a firefighter walk into the engine bay and get stopped at the entrance to have their temperature taken, which again was 100% what was happening definitely on set. Um, and in a lot of workplaces.
And, uh, Bobby has not learned his lesson about talking about Athena behind her back, because he’s still talking about her behind her back. But he’s talking with Hen now
Alice: who is one of Athena’s best friends. So
Ellen: he’s worried about her. Okay?
Bex: But I understand that he’s worried about her and he is like an old woman and he needs to, you know, talk it out.
But your wife has explicitly told you that she doesn’t like you talking about her behind her back. So if you’re gonna do it, at least talk, at least do it [00:45:00] to people who aren’t gonna report back to Athena that you’ve been talking about her.
Ellen: He needs, he just needs reassurance. He’s so worried. He’s like, Hen I need you to tell me that she’s gonna be okay.
So basically, so Hen tells her, tells him that.
Bex: Pretty much.
Ellen: She’s like, “She needs to work, she needs to figure it out for herself. Just let her do the thing.” And Bobby’s like, okay, I guess I can do that. I’m para phrasing quite a lot there. But that’s basically what this scene is about.
Bex: That’s basically, yeah. Yeah. Pretty much the scene.
Ellen: Meanwhile, Athena is getting back out there. Uh, she’s got a mask on, as you said, like with an LAPD logo on it, very swish. Um, she walks into the headquarters and everyone is wearing a mask. And except for
Bex: How much money do you think that this LAPD, like this 9-1-1 LAD spent on masks for everyone?[00:46:00]
Alice: That’s a very good question.
Ellen: I don’t know, but they look, they look quite good quality from what we can tell.
Bex: They do look good. But you would’ve had to have like multiple masks because you need to wash those ones regularly. Yeah,
Ellen: yeah. Would’ve been a fortune.
Bex: Anyway. That’s just where my brain has gone. Like, fuck, that would be expensive to have to kit out every officer with multiple branded masks,
Ellen: maybe they forced everyone to buy them.
Bex: I dunno. Fundraising for the LAPD,
Alice: I was gonna say a fundraiser, yeah
Bex: mandatory fundraising. There’s probably something about it in the big thick folder of guidelines that, um, Elaine gives to Athena to read while she’s at her desk.
Ellen: Well, interestingly, Elaine is not wearing a mask when Athena comes into her office.
Alice: Yeah. She just takes off the mask.
Bex: Well, they’re probably all in the same bubble, so it’s okay.
Maybe Captain Maynard just lives in the office so she doesn’t have to wear a mask because she doesn’t go anywhere. Yeah. [00:47:00] It’s hit and miss sometimes that I, when they’re wearing masks and when not wearing masks. But I do appreciate that for the most part, they try and have the characters wear masks.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: So we get another person who is surprised that Athena is back at work, um, and that she’s not taking more time to, um, to heal.
Alice: Um, and Athena says that she wants to ease her way back in,
Bex: which I think is probably the first time that she’s admitted this. ’cause everyone else we’ve found out that she’s on desk duty, which we’ve learned from the previous experience that Athena despises desk duty.
Yeah, it’s interesting. At this point, she’s like, you know what? I’m quite happy with desk duty and I will admit it to you that I’m happy with desk duty for now. Uh, but when Elaine says to her like, “I’m surprised that I got your call about, you know, wanting to come back, even if you are easing in,” she says, “I was beat up. It wasn’t the end of the world.”
And Elaine responds like, “Well, I mean, no. But after everything that’s happened, it kind of feels [00:48:00] like maybe it is the end of the world.” Athena brushes this off and says, “You sound like my daughter.” Which introduces us to what has been going on with May.
Ellen: Ah, turns out she’s taken a gap year and what is she doing to fill the gap?
Alice: Yeah. Athena’s not very happy about what she’s doing to fill that gap, which is interesting.
Bex: I don’t think Athena would be happy with anything that she did to fill that gap because she’s not happy that she’s taking a gap.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah, that’s right.
Bex: She’d rather she went to college. Um, but May is, when we cut to find out what May is doing, she’s sitting at a station practicing taking 9-1-1 calls because she…
Alice: it’s so cute!
Bex: Is a dispatcher now or training to be a dispatcher.
Alice: She’s just sitting there like “9-1-1. What’s your emergency? 9-1-1. Watch your emergency.”
Bex: It’s different, different [00:49:00] vocal inflections, different voices. So pitch it higher, pitch it lower, and then Maddie catches her and May tells her that she’s trying to get that calm and authoritative voice down.
Ellen: Yeah. Apparently she’s been reading ahead in the, in the training manuals and Maddie’s like, “Stop reading ahead. You’re gonna cover it next week.” And so May is a, a plus student apparently. And Maddie says like, “are you sure you wouldn’t rather be at college?” And May’s like, “I, I would be sitting at staring at a screen if I was doing college right now, which is the same thing as what we’re gonna do now.”
So, yeah,
Bex: it’s also because if May went off to college, they suddenly couldn’t include her in a lot of episodes. But having her be a 9-1-1 dispatcher, she becomes like a serious regular, more storyline opportunities.
Ellen: Yay.
Bex: Yay.
Alice: Especially since it’s possible Maddie might be going on maternity leave at some point soon.
Bex: Yeah, we’re gonna need someone else in the dispatch, um, so that we have an [00:50:00] excuse to keep going back. ’cause apparently Josh isn’t interesting enough.
Ellen: Oh, too, I was gonna say, Josh can carry the whole place on his shoulders. He’ll be right.
Bex: Josh 100% could carry a storyline or two. Yeah, but no,
Ellen: Oh well, May’s there too now.
Alice: Um, but yeah, so today is duet day. Um, so Maddie’s lead singer and May’s gonna play the keyboards, which May does not understand at all.
Bex: Maddie’s so pleased with herself with this like analogy and ma just stares at her blankly. But what she means is Maddie’s gonna talk and May is gonna type as they take calls.
Ellen: Okay, so now we’re going back to the almost present, basically where we started at the beginning of the episode because this is the guy who’s telling someone on the phone that they micro quakes, um, they’re small, he’s at the Hollywood reservoir, they got some weird readings, so he’s running a check. Um, and then he says this, this line.[00:51:00]
And, uh, we all go, oh my God. ’cause he says, “Hey, it’s September. How much worse could it get?” Oh, you just wait.
Bex: Dude.
Alice: Like, don’t poke the bear.
Ellen: You got no idea. Just the beginning
Anyway. He’s gotta get off the phone to his honey because it, his boss is on the other line. So,
Bex: so while he switches to talk to his boss, we are going to cut to a bus, an orange bus. Coincidentally,
Ellen: Thee bus.
Bex: Is, do you think it’s the bus? I mean, how many orange buses do you think there are gonna be in this episode?
Alice: I’m sure it’s just some other random bus. It’s fine.
Bex: It’s just a random orange bus. Um, but the focus of is not at this point the bus. It’s um, we get like a very [00:52:00] close up, full screenshot of a young, the back, a young man’s backpack, which has a badge on it that says Proud Aspie. So this is CJ. CJ gets on the bus and he must be a regular because the bus driver knows him and greets him by name.
Alice: Um, yeah, so apparently he’s back today because hybrid scheduling has been implemented in special education programs across Southern California. CJ also says he has class today and he’s working on his eye contact.
Bex: It says that he’s a senior. Are we going senior in high school or senior in college?
Alice: Senior in high school. Surely.
Bex: Uh, it looks, I don’t know. It looks a little old to be a senior in high school, but then again, I can’t tell ages. And Hollywood is notorious for casting like 30 year olds for teenagers, so who knows?
Ellen: I assumed it was high school, but, um, as well,
Bex: look, it possibly is.
Ellen: [00:53:00] Yeah. She asked him if he’s a senior this year and he says, “yes, I am Vanessa. Just like you.” It’s like, oh, damn. Thanks kid.
Bex: Uh, Vanessa, the bus driver is not the only one who recognizes CJ. There’s a, a woman in a, a pink apron, which is gonna become important later. Um, sitting in one of the seats further down the bus, um, who greets him with a Corona hug, which is pretty much just, she stretches her arms out and like, it’s almost like a, an a air high five.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: And when she says, CJ, you’re back, he repeats the same line that he told Vanessa about hybrid scheduling and he has class today. And he makes a point of noting that she’s wearing her Pink Apron and she says “Yes, because it’s Pink Apron day.”
Alice: I don’t know why it’s Pink Apron Day, but apparently it’s Pink Apron day.
Bex: Well, I dunno. And it’s gonna become important later on.
Ellen: [00:54:00] She says, “I’ve been trying to keep it up while you were gone.” So is, did she accidentally wear the pink thing on multiple days? And he noticed and called her out on it and she’s like, oh, it must be pink day.
Bex: Um, and just before the bus pulls away, a man like rushes onto the bus, um, comes through to the back and sits in the disabled seating, which is the, the seats that face inwards rather than forwards. Um, and you can see that CJ is not happy about that.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: But before we find out CJ’s reaction, we’re gonna go back to the water and power worker who’s switched lines to talk to his boss. A Mr. Cruz.
Ellen: You know, apparently this guy’s the same person who was in the tsunami episode, the water and power
Bex: poor dude. He survives the tsunami.
Alice: Yeah. This guy should not be working around water. [00:55:00]
Ellen: Well, it’s not, it’s not his fault that these things have happened. He just is, has to clean it up. He has to deal with it.
Bex: Was he the one that Athena kidnapped to turn the power off so she could get to May?
Ellen: I don’t remember. I just saw it in the, um, trivia. I didn’t look it up, but it could have been the guy who was there to turn the power off when the guy was getting electrocuted. Maybe? Was that that episode too?
Bex: Yeah, yeah, it was. That was that episode. But like they couldn’t get the power turned off, so, and um, Jamal kept telling Athena like, “The power’s still on. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ellen: Yeah. Okay.
Bex: Yeah, that’s, she’s like, yeah, but they couldn’t get anyone to her. So she got a, a black and white to kidnap a water and power worker to come and turn the power.
Ellen: Yeah, it’s probably, it’s probably the same guy.
Bex: It’s probably that same guy. Um, so he’s being sent up to the reservoir because they’ve been getting some weird readings, I guess.
Um, and he [00:56:00] tells Mr. Cruz that he would’ve been up there yesterday, but they had a systems crash somewhere. Um, but he will go up now and take a look. So while he’s doing that, we’re gonna cut back to the bus.
Ellen: Yeah. CJ’s getting quite distressed with the fact that the dude is sitting in the, um, you know, mobility challenged section and eventually he, he’s kind of watching him and then trying to hold it together and eventually he just snaps and goes “Forward seating is reserved for mobility challenged, passengers and members of the elderly community.” And the guy’s like, “Look, if someone gets on, I’ll move.” Um, and then Tracy starts going off at him. So they, they start having an argument about it, basically.
Bex: Yeah. But the, the gist of the argument is that Zeke, that’s his name, um, sitting in that seat is distressing to CJ because he has Asperger’s and therefore to keep CJ happy, Zeke needs to move [00:57:00] and Zeke’s like, “I’m not moving.”
Right. So here’s where we need to do a quick acknowledgement of the elephant in the room of the fact that they’re using, um, Asperger’s and the Aspie term in this episode. Um, because it’s as of 2025, that term is no longer, it’s no longer a, an official diagnosis. Um, and for a lot of people on the, in the Autism community, it’s quite an offensive term.
Alice: Yeah. It was actually retired in 2013 as well.
Bex: Yeah. It was retired as an official diagnosis because it’s incredibly difficult to, especially with Autism becoming a spectrum disorder and the acknowledgement that it is a spectrum and there is a very wide range of what Autism looks like in people, um, is very difficult to, to, to determine is this person on the spectrum, but they have very low support needs?
Or do they [00:58:00] have Asperger’s? And so it was officially decided that they were just going to roll it all in, and Asperger’s is part of the Autism spectrum disorder now. Um, it doesn’t help that Asperger’s is named after a psychologist who became a Nazi collaborator, and we don’t fuck with Nazis.
Ellen: Oh.
Bex: So we’re gonna try and like, let that name die.
Ellen: Mm-hmm.
Bex: Uh, but one of the reasons that it’s, it’s still, it’s a little bit like controversial to still be using the term Aspie and Asperger’s disorder is it’s, there’s an ableism inherent in it because by sort of using, saying that you have Asperger’s, the saying that you’re an Aspie rather than saying you are Autistic, there’s this sort of perception that people, Autistic people are, you know, very high needs, low cognitive ability, low communication skills, but people with Asperger’s, they’re just, you know, a little bit socially awkward,
Ellen: Right, [00:59:00] yeah.
Bex: However, based on CJ’s age, I’m gonna say that he probably was diagnosed at the time that Asperger’s was still an official diagnosis. So it’s, it’s not surprising that, that he and probably his family are, are clinging and identifying with that disorder rather than transitioning to saying that he is Autistic or he’s on the spectrum.
Alice: Yeah. It’s still kind of yikes that like seven years after Asperger’s has been like retired as a diagnosis that 9-1-1’s like, oh, we’ll just make a character. Like, yes, it’s realistic in the real world, but using it in media is still a bit icky.
Bex: I think also the actor who’s playing CJ also identifies as having Asperger’s.
So that’s probably like, if we’re going to have like a disabled actor play disabled character, we’re going to stay true to their disability. So if they’re, [01:00:00] if they have, if they’re identifying as their disability is Asperger’s, we are gonna have that character have Asperger’s rather than trying to force a different diagnosis, a different disability, even though it’s not different on them.
But just so everyone’s aware, we, we recognize that it’s, it’s not kosher that they’re using the term Asperger’s, but we recognize that for some people this is still, this is still how they still the way identify and
Ellen: how they identify. Yeah.
Bex: And how they talk about themselves. Yes.
Alice: Anyway, fuck Nazis.
Bex: Yeah. So while Tracy and Zeke are having their standoff, um, our poor water and power worker has reached the wall of the reservoir and is staring in dismay at these cracks that have started to form across the wall, uh, with water trickling out, just, you know, [01:01:00] just to make things even better. And then another micro quake hits and we see all of the characters reacting to the micro quake.
Ellen: And at the 118, um, he asks if that was a four, and Eddie doesn’t think it’s any more than a three, but Buck said
Alice: Buck has his phone out.
Ellen: Buck’s looking at his phone,
Alice: Chim tells him not to cheat. Yeah.
Bex: I’m guessing they must be like so bored that they’re sort of put a betting pool on if they can correctly guess the magnitude of the quakes.Which is why Buck having his phone out is considered cheating.
Alice: But yeah, Buck helpfully informs everyone that Caltech’s been tracking micro quakes the last few days. Thousands of them. And Bobby’s just like, “Yeah, that didn’t feel micro to me.”
Bex: Josh gets a little bit of a psychic moment and warns all the dispatches that that micro quake was a little bit bigger. So he agrees with Bobby, um, and tells dispatch to prepare for the deluge. Yep. [01:02:00] And then we go back to the dam.
Ellen: Speaking of deluge,
Bex: speaking of deluge, the poor water and power worker stares at the wall, which is the cracks of spider webbing out and getting bigger. And he just says, “Oh, come on, 2020. Don’t do me like that.”
Um, when in fact 2020 is gonna do him like that because the dam breaks and he is smacked in the face with concrete and water and, um, goodbye Department of Water and Power man, we, we hardly knew you.
Ellen: Yeah, I, I was thinking like, I hope he made it out of there. But you know, there’s a dam breaking,
Bex: Oh, there’s no way he made it out of there.
Ellen: So he probably didn’t make it outta there.
Alice: I mean, he survived the tsunami. Maybe he’ll be okay.
Bex: He just got hit in the face. Like that amount of water
Ellen: with a breaking dam wall?
Bex: He probably got, he probably got concrete to the face. So, you know, his unconscious underwater if the pressure from the water hitting him [01:03:00] didn’t break something important. Anyway, there’s no way that
Ellen: Aw, let us believe! Come on.
Bex: Well, we never hear back from him in this episode.
Ellen: No, we, we don’t find out. The, uh, water heads for heads downstream,
Bex: but then I think this is the worst segue. So we see the water like rushing through the damn wall, down the Hollywood Hills, and we cut back to dispatch saying, you know, oh, you know, oh, you’ve got water flooding, you know, if it’s a main break, we’ll notify water and power.
Like you can’t notify water and power. He’s dead.
Ellen: They, they know about it, can guarantee it. Uh, Linda has, is now on the phone with Janelle about the, the dam breaking and when she, when she screams on the other end of the line, Janelle like, yanks her ear earpiece out, looking at it like it’s hurting her.
And Josh sort of runs over and goes, “What was that?” I’m like, oh Josh, you can’t hear everyone’s [01:04:00] calls anymore. It’s only…
Alice: he lost his, his magical headset
Ellen: sometimes he can hear them
Bex: so hit and miss, I dunno. They’re so hit and miss with this.
Ellen: Anyway. Linda is, is not as frantic as I expected that she might’ve been. Um, she just goes,
Alice: yeah, right?
Ellen: She said, she said the dam broke.
Bex: Linda, that’s pretty important information.
Ellen: Mm.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Um, okay, so back to the bus. This is very cut, choppy scenes, but it’s building the tension because, you know, the, the water’s coming. Um, they’re still having their argument about moving out of the, um, you know, disabled and elderly seats.
Bex: Um, CJ is getting quite distressed. He’s started rocking backwards and forwards in his seat. Um, and Tracy is saying to Zeke, “look, I get that you got hit hard by everything during the pandemic, but it doesn’t give you the right…” but before she can say anything else, um, CJ is looking out the window and he sees a [01:05:00] wall of water rushing toward them and they’re on an overpass at this point.
So they’re several feet up in the air and this water is like level with the bus, and he just says, “Ah, I think we’re all gonna get hit hard,” which attracts everyone’s attention. Um, and then all of a sudden the water hits and the next thing we know the bus is through the, um, the office building. Yeah.
Ellen: So I was, I had to rewind and watch this a couple of times to see if I could work out how close this overpass actually was to the building because
Alice: Yeah,
Ellen: it didn’t look very close. It didn’t in the, in the building shots. Like when they were showing
Alice: Yeah. I do not understand
Ellen: the outside of the building, and
Bex: so the water has like picked up the bus and carried it quite a ways.
Ellen: and like, not just knocked it over the edge of the overpass, but like yeeted it into the building, like,
Bex: [01:06:00] yeah. Yeah.
Ellen: It. Yeah, I, yeah. Anyway.
Bex: No, but yes,
Ellen: not, not thinking hard about this because
Bex: for the drama,
Ellen: for the drama, the bus is like 10 stories up in the side of this building.
Bex: I think it’s like four. I tried to count the windows, but still it’s not, I don’t think
Ellen: it’s high.
Bex: It would be possible for them to be going over an overpass and have flood waters, literally picking up and surf it across to an office building and then slam it, um, front of the bus into the window the way that it does.
But it’s dramatic and I love the way that it happens with, you know, Keith saying, um, I didn’t throw you under the bus, and the bus being thrown into Keith. Um,
Ellen: yeah.
Bex: So I’m gonna, I’m gonna let them have it. ’cause for the drama, it was fucking amazing. Um, we don’t even get a 9-1-1 call, like the bus goes through the building and the 118 are there.
Alice: Yeah, they just appear,
Bex: and I think they’ve got [01:07:00] new turnouts this season. They’re very, either that or, um, they had literally nothing to do during the pandemic except wash their turnouts. And this is actually just what they look like when they’re clean,
Alice: possibly.
Bex: So then, yes, we go back to dispatch now.
Ellen: Yeah. Josh is taking control. Apparently Sue’s not on shift today. Um,
Bex: apparently
Ellen: it’s just Josh. He’s running everything. Uh, he is going to,
Alice: they have opposite bubbles. It’s fine.
Ellen: Yeah. Maybe. The water is gonna keep going. They’ll have to keep a list of the flooded streets on the whiteboard so they know what’s underwater.
And then he gets, he goes over to May and tells her to get off the phones, and she’s gonna have to, well, she’s gonna have to listen into other calls and find out which streets are flooded and then put them on the board.
Bex: Yes, she immediately knows what Josh is gonna ask her to do too. Um,
Ellen: yeah, she’s switched on. She’s paying attention.
Bex: She, she gets a gold star.
Alice: [01:08:00] She is Athena’s daughter. She’s got this.
Bex: So while she’s listening in to calls and making notes and marking off the streets, um, at some point somebody has wheeled in a giant television onto the dispatch floor, and they’re showing, uh, Channel Eight News.
And I think, and this is like possibly my favorite segue of this episode, because Channel Eight are coming to us live from an incredible scene at the 101 in Hollywood where a metro bus was apparently struck by the debris flow and ended up in an office building. They don’t have word about yet about how many people have been injured, but it appears that the LAFD and LAPD are rushing to the scene.
And then we immediately cut to the 118 just standing in an elevator listening to muzak as the elevator very slowly takes them up to the correct floor. There is no rushing at all. It’s hilarious.
Ellen: Yeah. [01:09:00] Well, they can’t rush because the elevator is being slow.
Bex: No, but I mean, of all the things, they could be running up the stairs.
They could have had them, you know, like diving out of the, um, out of the engine truck. But no, it’s just the, the, having them say that they’re rushing and then showing them just standing calmly and
Ellen: they’re absolutely not rushing
Alice: the elevator music and everything. It’s great.
Bex: Like peak comedy, it’s so good.
Alice: Um, Buck’s still on the phone as well. And this is definitely the season where like that thing with Buck always looking up fun facts. Like you, you sort of see it in season three with like him being obsessed with natural disasters, but this, you really see Buck just spouting random fun facts.
Ellen: Oh right.
Alice: And yeah, he’s just like, “ah, Hollywood Reservoir is like two and a half billion gallons. Where’s all that water gonna go?”
Bex: Hen says it’s all gonna go in one direction out to [01:10:00] sea.
Alice: Yeah. Hen says that her mom survived the dam break in the sixties in Baldwin Hills.
Bex: Then the elevator dings and we get another great transition where you’ve gone from like the calm of them just standing there in the elevator listening to the music with the doors open, and suddenly it’s just chaos.
’cause you’ve got this bus and there’s sparks going from where power lines have been cut, and it’s just
Alice: chaos. Yeah.
Bex: It’s just chaos. It’s just great. And it apparently, it’s definitely their stop. Um, but only Bobby, Chim and Hen get off.
Alice: And right before the elevator doors close on Eddie and Buck, Eddie turns to Buck and says, Hey, at least it’s not a tsunami, right?
Bex: And the doors shut on Buck’s, like absolute glare at Eddie.
Alice: Like, what the fuck, man?
Bex: But I mean, [01:11:00] to be fair, Eddie is like king of inappropriate humor.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Like, I’m thinking back to when he tells, um, Buck, when he is looking after Christopher, you know, take him somewhere inland this time after the tsunami.
Ellen: Oh yeah, yeah. Well it was like, you know, 18 months ago or something. Wasn’t it like the tsunami at this point? So,
Bex: oh, I’m just, I’m also thinking just poor Buck, everyone is always just making light of his emergencies. Like that doctor, after Buck got cleared, after the firetruck fell on him, um, saying to them like, “Yeah, just don’t get another firetruck fall on you.” Like, dude.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: So while Buck and Eddie keep going up in the elevator, um, Bobby, Chim and Hen are taking stock of the scene in front of them.
Ellen: Yeah. They found, um, Ashley, she’s under an overturned chair. Chim checks her out and she’s got a pulse. So he, he [01:12:00] wakes her up by putting the smelling salts and she like jerks away ’cause she’s like, what the hell?
He says, “Understatement of the year there’s been an accident.” And then she remembers that Keith was also in the room. So she tries to sit up and, um, Chim’s like, “No, no, no. Stay still.”
Bex: So while Chim is dealing with Ashley, Bobby’s looking at the bus and they realize that the way that the bus is sticking out of the building, anytime anybody on the bus or the passengers move, the bus shifts backwards and forwards.
So they can’t do anything for the people in the bus until they get the bus stabilized, which is what the Bobsy twins are doing up on the roof.
Ellen: Yeah. And he’s setting up something on the roof to be an anchor. So that. Buck can abseil down the side of the building.
Bex: Yeah,
Ellen: they’re [01:13:00] very competent and business-like. No jokes when they’re on the roof.
Bex: Nope.
Ellen: Uh, Hen talks to the bus driver who is like sitting underneath some kind of like, I don’t know, big steel beam thing.
Bex: Yeah. There’s this large metal frame that’s gone through the front of the bus and sort of doesn’t look like it’s gone through her, but it looks like it’s just kind of gone on top of her and it’s pinning her to the seat.
So she continues, um, continues sort of along the side, finds CJ who is, um, in his distress. He’s just continually repeating the same sentences that he was saying to Zeke when Zeke wouldn’t move, but he manages to snap out of it when Hen talks to him. Um, and we discover the, the woman in the pink apron, Tracy, she won’t wake up.
She’s on the floor unconscious, which is probably stressing CJ out even more. Meanwhile, Zeke, uh, our Mr, I’m gonna [01:14:00] sit in this seat whether you like it or not, is mostly fine, except he’s got a very large shard of glass sticking out of his thigh and he’s not coping very well with it. And, uh, he’s, it hurts too much.
He has apparently no pain tolerance whatsoever, and despite Hen telling him don’t touch it, He apparently has not watched any Grey’s Anatomy or any kind of medical procedural show to know that if you’ve got something sticking in you, you don’t pull it out. ’cause that’s exactly what he does.
Ellen: Yeah. He just yanks it out of there.
Bex: And then we get spurting blood and gore!
Ellen: Blood, blood everywhere.
Bex: We have a femoral bleed, ladies and gentlemen.
Alice: Yep. If it’s spurting, it’s an artery.
Ellen: And Hen’s trying to tell him just to remain calm and he’s like, ah.
Bex: It’s just making it spurt even more.
Ellen: Oh.
Bex: But help comes
Ellen: but [01:15:00] CJ’s gonna help. Yeah.
Bex: Yeah. Help comes in a surprising, um, from a surprising direction from CJ, who immediately stands up, starts stripping off his belt, and then, um, goes over to Zeke. And Zeke starts freaking out ’cause this kid who is angry at him is suddenly approaching with a belt in his hands, Hen’s wondering what the hell CJ’s about to do.
But all he says is, “In the event of extreme bleeding, applying a tourniquet is essential.” So that’s what he does. He’s using the belt as a tourniquet.
Ellen: Yeah. And he repeats that he’s proud Aspie and Wilderness Ranger this time
Bex: and is working on his eye contact and
Ellen: he’s working on his eye contact. Good job, CJ.
So, on the roof, um, Eddie tells Bobby, I guess the rest of the team and the audience, that Buck is about to touch down on the bus and, um, secure the bus with some webbing. So that’s what Buck does. [01:16:00]
Bex: Yeah, pretty much. He’s putting like hooks on this side of the bus underneath it, which Eddie is, which is attached to like straps that Eddie is strapping to some kind of pipe railing on the roof that basically just so that the bus is not gonna move up and down, it’s gonna be held in one place.
Ellen: Yeah. It’s pretty cool. Like, I don’t know how often they’re gonna need to do something like this, but it’s pretty, it’s a, it’s a cool way to stop it from moving.
Bex: Yeah, but they can’t get onto the bus until Buck finishes, which suddenly becomes a high priority because, um, Tracy wakes up and rolls over and it’s hard to tell from this shot, um, but whatever Hen and Bobby see, freaks them the hell out and he’s immediately hurrying Buck up.
So he hurries, he straps everything in. Um, he gets [01:17:00] everything hooked up. Eddie confirms that they’re all secure, but at this point, Buck has swung into the office building to sort of bend down and put a hook under the middle of the bus.
So he’s crouching down so he can see under the bus, and he realizes that there’s somebody under there. And we’ve found Keith. So now they have a, um, a dilemma because they just secured the bus so that they could get all the people off the bus without the bus falling out the side of the building. But they cannot get under the bus to get Keith out while it’s still secured, because there’s not enough room.
Not even Chim can crawl under and get him.
Ellen: Yeah, I don’t, this is, he, he’s not trapped under the bus. He’s just underneath it. Right? He’s not being crushed by it. So the way they,
Bex: I think there’s too much, I think there’s too much de there’s too much debris in the way. It was just, but I mean, later [01:18:00] on the bus moves and he starts screaming.
So there must be some pressure being put on him by the bus.
Ellen: Yeah, maybe. Yeah. It was just the way they yank him out later.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: I was like, why didn’t they just do that from the start? But anyway, we’ll get there. Um, um, so they can’t reach him. They, they think that he’s got possibly a fractured pelvis. Uh, this is Chim doing his, um, thing again where he just knows what’s wrong with people.
Um, and Keith actually wakes up and tries to tell Ashley, like, “I kept you outta that meeting on purpose. He said he didn’t want a woman running his money.” And she’s like, “Shut up. Stay still.”
Bex: Actually, Chim tells them maybe that you guys can have your sidebar after we get the 30,000 pound teeter totter off you, which you see the little light bulb above Bobby’s helmet go on. He’s like “It’s a seesaw.” Chim’s like
Alice: “Also known as a teeter totter,”
Bex: “Also known as a teeter-totter,” [01:19:00] which actually did like, I I we’ve, we’ve got three different states here. Did anybody call it a teeter totter?
Ellen: No, that’s a hundred percent American thing.
Bex: It’s a seesaw? Yeah. Okay.
Alice: Yeah. Just a seesaw.
Bex: Right. So then Bobby calls back up to Eddie and he is like, Eddie, we need the bus to rock backwards a little bit. And he is like, I just finished tying the fucking bus up and now you want me to undo it again? Yeah. He’s just like, “Yes. And you just do it, Eddie. Okay?” Like, oh fine.
So the idea is that they’re going to get everybody off the bus and then they are going to let it rock backwards so that it will lift up and then they can get Keith out.
Alice: Um, I love Hen just go, “As plans go, it is one.” Uh, so they’re a bit [01:20:00] dubious.
Ellen: Okay. So they open the doors to the bus. Hen says, “All right, gentlemen, welcome to triage.” She quickly tells the guys about what’s going on with all the passengers. And they get, like, they get a proper tourniquet onto Zeke, and they get him outta there.
Bex: They get all the other passengers out of there, but then they’re left with Tracy and CJ. Um, Tracy is going to be a difficult one because by the time Hen comes to examine her, we get a closeup of, um, Tracy’s face and specifically her eyes, and we get the classic television, um, brain injury blown pupil.
Alice: Yeah. Very blown. Very pupil.
Bex: Yeah,
Ellen: very pupil?
Alice: Very pupil.
Ellen: And then they, they say that, oh, this is so gross. They, they say it’s a, a ser [01:21:00] cerebral hematoma. If she’s not in surgery in the next 20 minutes, the swelling’s gonna push her brains out of her eye socket. I was like, oh,
Bex: did we, did we need that Hen? Really?
Ellen: Like, do we need to know that? Yeah. And does, does Tracy need to know that? Does CJ need to hear that? Like, really?
Bex: No.
Ellen: He is already stressed. He does not wanna know about that too.
Alice: Um, but apparently they’ve gotta keep her at 30 degrees. Uh, so Buck hightails it out of there to work out how to get her out at 30 degrees. Um, ’cause they can’t put her a backboard.
Bex: I don’t know whether it’s, whether he is trying to work out how to get her outta there 30 degrees. ’cause they literally just like pick her up and carry her out. I think he might be getting the gurney ready for them.
Alice: The gurney ready at 30 degrees? Yeah.
Bex: But all we hear is we’ve gotta keep her at 30 degrees and before Bobby can pass on the order bucks already high tailing out of the bus going Yep. 30 degrees. I’ve got it. We don’t actually find out what he’s got. Um,
Alice: this is where he’s like cooling down the gurney [01:22:00] and, and Hen’s like, “Angles, not temperature.”
Bex: Oh, I didn’t even think that, but that’s amazing. Um, and then to make matters worse, Tracy starts coughing up spinal fluids. So Yay for Tracy, she’s in great shape.
Alice: Oh my god. Apparently 30 degrees Fahrenheit is minus one.
Ellen: Oh.
Bex: Damn. That’s a lot of ice packs.
Alice: Yeah. So buck’s icing down the gurney. Tracy’s uh, coughing up spinal fluid. Um, and so Bobby is trying to get CJ out and CJ is having a bit of a meltdown, which is fair because his friend is coughing up spinal fluid.
Bex: Yeah. And what’s really triggering him is that she’s coughed up red blood onto her pink apron, and suddenly her apron is not pink anymore. It’s red. [01:23:00] And that’s, that doesn’t… that sent him spiraling. Like the apron’s not pink, but it’s a pink apron day.
Ellen: Mm-hmm.
Bex: CJ and Tracy are not the only ones who aren’t doing so well because we check back in with Ashley and Keith, um, through Chim and Ashley’s tells us, uh, “Do you remember how you told him to stop talking? Well, he’s stopped talking and that’s not natural.”
Alice: Um, yeah. So Keith isn’t doing good.
Ellen: No,
Bex: No, no one’s doing good. So Chim tells Bobby that they, whatever they’re gonna do, they need to do it now so they can get Keith out. So, but unfortunately Bobby and CJ are still on the bus. So Bobby just radios to Eddie and says, “Be ready to tilt on my signal.” And Eddie’s like, “cool. Everybody off the bus?” And he’s just like, “No, on my signal.”
Alice: Yeah, just do it.
Bex: And he’s like, “Oh, fine. Ready when you are.” I’m like, not my circus, not my monkeys. Just whatever. [01:24:00] He’s not having a good time up on that roof. He’s getting pissy.
Ellen: Well, he probably, he can’t see what’s happening. All he can hear is his garbled commands through the, um, radio.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: Alright. So they, he, like Eddie does the thing, the bus tilts, um, they clear the debris away from Keith and then on three they just yank him outta there.
They, they grab like an arm and a leg and just turf him out onto, then they, then they dump him on the backboard. So they’re not very careful, but I mean, they’re in a hurry. Um, and he’s not,
Bex: they’re very much in a hurry.
Ellen: he’s not doing so well, so yeah. Think they,
Bex: ’cause they need to get him outta the bus so they can put the bus back down, um, so that Bobby and Keith can get off safely.
Yeah. I guess with everything that’s happened to Keith, like his prob spinal injuries are the least of their worries. I will note that we have, um, Durham working with the 118. So he got a promotion [01:25:00]
Ellen: oh, it is someone we know. I was wondering
Bex: during the pandemic. Yes. This is his second time. Um, please note that he is working with the 118 here because this is gonna come up later.
Ellen: Oh, okay.
Bex: Um, yeah, so apparently yanking Keith out from under the bus, um, wakes him up and he’s still apologizing to Ashley.
Alice: As he should.
Bex: He’s obviously, he’s seen the error of his ways from underneath the bus that he threw her under. He’s like, “I’m so sorry. Jake and I should never have done what we did. It was sexist, it was stupid.”
And Ashley’s like, ” , I’m still not giving you my commissions.” And as they’re wheeling him out of the office, he’s negotiating for how they’re gonna split. He’s like, “Could, could we do it like 50 50, like 70 30?” She’s like, “No, you are giving me a hundred percent of those commissions. I don’t care that you just got rescued from under a bus. Those, that’s my money.”
Ellen: Yep. Good for her.
Bex: So they get the bus back [01:26:00] into place. Bobby and CJ survived their trip on the, um, the public transits, uh, teeter totter.
Alice: The teeter totter? Yeah.
Bex: Yep. But then there is a noise, which everyone is very concerned about, and Eddie radios through to Buck asking for him to confirm that everyone is off the bus, because apparently the bus runs on natural gas and it’s venting said gas.
And suddenly CJ and Bobby can smell gas and Buck jumps onto the bus to get Bobby and CJ off and is greeted with a massive fireball.
Alice: Yeah. I don’t know what actually a lit here, but,
Bex: well, there was like, when they exited the elevator, we could see sparks from like where the. Lights had been smashed, but so power was still running through, the electricity was still running, stuff was sparking, [01:27:00]
Alice: which would be weird. You’d think they’d turn the power off, but sure.
Bex: You would also think that if there was natural gas and light and sparks, it would’ve gone off, gone up before now?
Alice: No. Well, but there is a line earlier where Buck says that it’s still like that it’s not venting gas. Yeah. And so it’s only since they moved it and then moved it back that it’s started.
Bex: Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. I will buy that.
Ellen: Oh, yeah. Okay. That makes sense.
Alice: Um, so yes, no, that is actually mentioned. But anyway, yeah. So Buck jumps on the bus, a big fireball blows him off the bus, and then he jumps back on the bus because now like he’s seen that Bobby and CJ were still on the bus when the firewall happened, and Bobby is face down in the aisle.
Ellen: The bus is not on fire or anything. After it blew up the gas, it just No. Burned the gas off quickly. Yeah. Yes. And then everything’s fine.
Bex: Yeah. Apparently nothing else caught. So it ignited very quickly and then [01:28:00] dissipated very quickly.
Alice: Yeah. The seats are made of very fireproof fabric, apparently.
Bex: I’m guessing they would be if you’re running on gas, but yes, Bobby’s face down in the aisle. Uh, which worries buck for a second until Bobby holds himself to his feet and he realizes that Bobby just like threw himself down on top of CJ to use his turnout to protect CJ from the fire.
Alice: Yeah. And when Bobby asks if CJ’s okay, CJ just says, “I would like to get off the bus now.”
Bex: Yeah. I’m, I’m not going to school. I’m done working on my fucking eye contact. I just wanna go home.
Ellen: I reckon. Um, yeah. Bobby’s magical turnout coach save the day once again. Although that was Buck’s the other time, but yeah, same deal. Same stuff.
Bex: Oh, Bobby’s done it before. I think in Bobby begins again in the restaurant. He’s covered somebody’s body with his own body and that his turnout has [01:29:00] protected them, which I think is actually possibly part of like their training that the turnouts are fire repellant.
Alice: Yeah. That’s what the turnouts are for. Yeah.
Bex: So if you, if you’re like, worst case scenario, just like hunker down and let your turnout take the brunt of it.
Alice: Yeah. It’s like when they’re dealing with wildfires, they’ll like dig a trench and then put the turnouts on top of them to like, when the fire goes over the top of them.
Ellen: Oh, right. So we’re getting some overhead shots of the Hollywood Hills and showing the, the path the flood’s taken. Uh, dunno if this is from a real flood disaster in LA. Or somewhere or if it’s somewhere else that they’ve just co-opted some shots.
Bex: It definitely doesn’t look like Tim’s gone into the train set in his basement and like poured water down a like paper mache hill that he’s created.
Ellen: Yeah, it just went to his sandpit and made some things. No, um, no, this still [01:30:00] looked, looked like actual shots of a real flood, but you know, I dunno if it was in LA or somewhere else. Um, you can hear that from the 9-1-1 calls there was a tree and it fell on the house. Uh, you know, an ambulance is on the way, et cetera.
And so we get to see what Athena is up to now, and she is sitting, sitting at a desk telling people, uh, sort of coordinating things. “Don’t, don’t go to the school. It’s in the path of the debris flow. Use the library on sunset.” Elaine comes to check on her and she tells Elaine that “They’re not thinking on their feet out there. It’s more like their elbows.”
Bex: Elaine came in there with more than just intending to do more than just check on Athena because she received an alarming call from the emergency operation center where they’re worried about a landslide east of the reservoir, which Athena tells the [01:31:00] audience is entirely residential, so LAPD are gonna need boots on the ground to get people to knock on doors to evacuate their area.
And Elaine says, yes, and we also need someone to supervise the scene and she wants Athena to go do it. She needs Athena back out there.
Ellen: Athena does not look pleased.
Bex: Oh shit.
Ellen: She’s like, are you kidding me?
Alice: Yeah. Like, did I not just say I wanted to ease in?
Bex: This is not easing. So while she’s grappling with that, um, Janelle has called 9-1-1 again, and this time she’s got Maddie and she tells Maddie that she’s trapped somewhere underground. The water from the dam break brought her into what she thinks is a pipe. She’s pretty sure her rib and her ankle are broken. She doesn’t have any idea where she is.
Ellen: Poor Janelle. She’s really going through it today.
Bex: I think she’s been going through it for a while.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah,
Bex: because we, um, we [01:32:00] find out that she’s stuck in a spillway pipe, which she’s pretty sure it’s just water because it doesn’t smell that bad.
But unfortunately if she’s underground, that’s not good for her because as Maddie tells us, the, that’s the ground that’s about to tumble down the side of a hill. So if they don’t get her out, she’s gonna be buried alive.
And then we get, I guess it’s meant to be like they’re attempting to number one highlight what it was like during the pandemic. Like remember what it was like during the pandemic, and then also David Wallace-ing, Janelle, because we, we get to see how she, what her pandemic, um, lockdown was like.
Ellen: Mm-hmm.
Alice: Yeah. But it’s interesting because they go six months before the dam break, but Maddie’s five months pregnant and we found out Maddie was pregnant during the graduation party where they were all together. [01:33:00] And then we’ve gone six months before the dam break and then we get the,
Ellen: and there’s a shelter in place.
Alice: A shelter in place order.
Ellen: So are you saying that the graduation party was illegal?
Alice: An illegal graduation party in the house of a LAPD Sergeant?
Bex: Maybe It was like the last thing that happened. You know, they did the graduation party and as Athena’s cleaning up, the next day they get shelter in place.
Alice: But like we find out that Maddie’s pregnant, she’s already got signs.
Ellen: It’s, it’s very timey-whimy, who knows?
Alice: Anyway, apparently Janelle and her husband, Steve’s house was the first to get COVID, um, because they got it a whole month before anyone else.
Ellen: Yeah. They just, they just had to shelter in place on that day for some other reason.
Alice: It was just them. Yeah. But yeah, so we meet Janelle’s husband, Steve, who is the actual bike rider, so he seems to go bike riding a lot. Um, he says, the wind in your face [01:34:00] and a stretch of open road is a cure for whatever ails you.
Bex: Yeah, no, no, no,
Ellen: Unfortunately not.
Alice: Um, and then when they get the shelter in place order, um, he says it’s probably just for a few days.
Bex: I do like this, this progression though. Yeah. So we, we get a quick, we get, um, captions showing us the progression of time. So that happened six months before the dam break.
Then we get the caption saying it’s March. So they’re sheltering in place. Um, Janelle’s ordering, like I’m guessing Instacart, some kind of grocery delivery. The delivery guy comes to the door, she opens the door and she gets the, she takes them out of his hand.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Then we get to May, she’s still ordering groceries, but this time she’s staying inside the house and she’s yelling for the driver to leave it on the porch.
Then we get to June, and this time the driver has to leave them all the way down the end of the, the path of the letterbox. [01:35:00] So March.
Alice: Actually, that’s interesting too. So when we left, when we left season three, we were in May, and so it was two. Anyway.
Ellen: No. Anyway, I don’t think we can look too hard in that It doesn’t line up at all.
Bex: It, it doesn’t line up at all. Um,
Alice: um, yeah, 9-1-1, forgot that they’ve been breaching COVID protocols for like three months prior to this happening. Um, anyway. Yeah. So May, the driver leaves it on the porch. June, they leave it by the mailbox.
Bex: But then we also get in June that, um, Steve has still been going out for bike rides.
Um, and he comes back from his latest bike ride and he’s not doing well. He’s pushing the bike, he’s not riding it up to the driveway. He looks exhausted, he’s coughing, and then he just collapses on the front lawn. [01:36:00]
Alice: Yeah. Aw.
Bex: And the next thing we hear is it’s July and Janelle is calling the hospital to check in on her husband.
And we just see her start crying because I’m going to, because then we get still in July. The next shot is Janelle walking back into her house dressed all in black and Steve’s bike is abandoned on the porch.
Alice: Um, yeah. So apparently they didn’t tell her that her husband died, that she had to call and find out herself.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: Oh, maybe he had, it was, uh, other bad news that came before he actually passed away anyway.
Bex: Oh no, I’m either way, assuming that she checked, they, she called to check in and they’re like, oh shit, we were about to call you. We really, sorry. He passed. I’m gonna assume that the hospital was just so flat out that they didn’t have time Yeah.
To be doing the [01:37:00] call-ins. It’s probably like on the to-do list to do at the end of the shift, before you went home, you called through all the families.
Ellen: Hmm.
Alice: Um, and then in August, Janelle’s on the phone with her mom saying that she doesn’t want her traveling right now. Um, she’s doing okay. No, she hasn’t left the house.
She’s like, “I mean, where would I even go?” And then she sees Steve’s bike, which is still abandoned on the porch.
Bex: So why wouldn’t she ride Steve’s bike?
Alice: Probably too big for her.
Bex: Yeah. ’cause the next, ’cause it goes from her looking at Steve’s bike to, um, the Zip parcel dude dropping off a giant box, which is a new bike for Janelle, which she then spends pretty much most of August putting back together.
And then we get to September and she’s finally putting all the, she’s finally finished. She’s done a lot online shopping. She’s got her, her [01:38:00] Lycra, she’s got her helmet, she’s got like her kit. She’s taking the bike out for its inaugural spin
Ellen: and it happens to be the one day.
Alice: Yeah,
Bex: yeah. Oh. And she says to Maddie on the phone, “This is what I get for starting a new hobby. You know? No, I could have done sourdough or I, you know, could have started crocheting. No, I had to take up bike riding.” But apparently she promised her husband that she would start riding for him.
Ellen: Aw.
Alice: And she’s like, “Ride or die, and I guess now it’s die.” And it’s like, oh. Um, so Josh brings up some maps and they’re having a look at the real time maps of the storm drain system. Um, there’s spillways red for closed and green for open.
Bex: They’ve already worked out that Janelle is in a spillway. So she asks Janelle if she can see a junction box or switch, um, or anything that would open the spillway. And Janelle confirms that, yes, there is a box and she [01:39:00] thinks that she can get to it.
Maddie’s like, cool, get to the box, open it, flip the switch. But nobody counted on there being a padlock on the box. So Janelle can’t open it.
Ellen: Maddie’s full of ideas though. She’s like, have you got, do you keep tools with you when you ride your bike? And Janelle’s like, actually, this is the first time I’ve been out, but I just so happen to have some tools here that I’ve decided to bring with me on this inaugural ride.
Um, and they’re just little, like the, the tools that you take with you for fixing your bike on the road are very small and Maddie’s like, just use that to break it. And I’m like, there’s no way he gonna break a padlock with a tiny little, you know,
Bex: utility tool. Yeah, yeah,
Ellen: yeah. But she tries.
Bex: She tries. Yeah.
Alice: Um, but then the poor darling breaks down and she just keeps saying that she misses him and her [01:40:00] family’s in Wisconsin and she hasn’t seen them in almost a year. And it’s not, you know, it’s not the same just talking to them on the phone and Maddie’s like, I know, but you’re gonna see them again. Things will get better, uh, because I’m still here and so are you.
Bex: She tells Janelle that it’s not her time, and Janelle latches onto the, the fact that she’s still here. She’s like, “I’m still here. I’m still here. I really hate this year!” Every time she says the word, she is smashing that tiny little utility tool into that industrial strength padlock. Um, but the strength of her conviction is enough to break through the cable and the padlock, and she’s able to open the box, flip the switch, and open the spillway.
Ellen: Yay.
Bex: And suddenly one of the little red dots on the map that Maddie and Josh are looking at turns green. So they’ve found her
Alice: to be fair, I think we all hate this. Hate 2020. Enough to break a padlock. [01:41:00]
Bex: Yes. So Maddie says, tells Janelle, “We found you, help is on the way.” And here’s where, here’s why I said keep it. Um, remember that Durham was working for the 118 because suddenly he’s working for the 1 21.
Ellen: Oh.
Bex: Because when the 1 21 is dispatched, uh, to get Janelle and they’re carrying her out to the gurney, Durham is carrying her.
Ellen: Oh,
Alice: it’s fine. It’s Durham’s twin brother.
Bex: Like there’s a whole family of Durham boys working.
Ellen: Yeah, maybe he was on loan to the 118 just for that one day.
Alice: Their mother probably works at dispatch and is worried sick every day as well.
Bex: Like 100%. I know that they were just shooting all these scenes and they just grabbed random turnouts from costume and nobody remembered, wait, we’ve already used this one today.
Ellen: Is it a different person? Well, a different actor?
Bex: We can’t see. All you see is the back of their…
Alice: oh yeah. They don’t show [01:42:00] us the back. Yeah. They don’t show us the background firefighters.
Bex: We never see their face. Um, I don’t even think we see like the back of their head. I, we only ever see in this episode for Durham, we only see the back of their turnout where it quite brightly and clearly says Durham across the back.
I just thought it was funny,
Ellen: honestly, the things you notice.
Bex: Well apparently the storytelling, the emotional beats are not compelling enough for me to, um,
Ellen: apparently. Yeah. You just started noticing other things.
Alice: Noticing Durham’s twin brother.
Ellen: That’s right. Or
Alice: that’s why we’ll make sure we add Durham to the fan fiction of the background firefighters that we started in season six.
Ellen: Yes. Or, or, uh, you are just so switched onto the story that you are able to take in the story beats and notice all of the background technical stuff.
Bex: Yeah. No, I think I’m just obsessed with the background firefighters.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Um, speaking of switched on though, um, Janelle, who’s on the gurney and in [01:43:00] pain, it’s like, why do I smell the ocean? And then we pan from Janelle to the ocean because sure enough the water just wants to return to the ocean.
Ellen: She’s gone all the way from the hills to the ocean.
Alice: Yeah. Yeah.
Ellen: Which may not be all that far…
Alice: I mean that’s…I bike. Yeah. I biked there yesterday in GTA, it wasn’t that far.
Ellen: Okay. All right. So Janelle’s safe.
Bex: Yes. We’re gonna go back to Athena, who is now
Alice: back to Athena,
Bex: back on the streets. Um, and not happy about it.
Alice: Yeah, she’s definitely doing, um, the fake it till you make it thing.
Bex: I don’t think it helps that when she arrives on the scene that Elaine has sent her to, um, Williams is one of the first officers who greets her.
Ellen: Oh, this is really cute though. This scene. I quite like it.
Bex: Oh, it’s very cute. But I have a feeling that she’s got negative associations with Williams because he was one of the first officers on scene after she was attacked.
Ellen: [01:44:00] Oh yeah. Yeah. Fair enough.
Bex: But yeah, these poor, these two boys are, are just so desperate for Athena’s approval. It’s cute.
Ellen: It’s, yeah, they’re like smiling at her and going, oh, hi. Good to see you back. Oh, yeah. And she
Alice: just like “decided to kick it out here with the yard dogs?” And she was like, “well, someone’s gotta keep you puppies on a leash.”
Bex: So they’ve been door knocking. Um, they’ve got most of the residents cleared out. There are a few pack rats who are apparently, I’m guessing, going through their house and trying to decide what of their, uh, belongings needs to go with them. Um, but there’s one house where they know someone’s home, but they won’t come to the door. The neighbors have confirmed that somebody does live here, but nobody knows who it is.
Um, so Athena tells them to, uh, she moves them onto a different neighborhood. She says she’ll wrap this up. And then Williams very sweetly says, “It’s good to have you back.” [01:45:00] And then both of them just sort of stand there smiling at her, waiting for something
Ellen: it’s adorable.
Bex: And she’s just not having it. She’s like, “You waiting for a treat? Go.”
Alice: Yeah, I just gave you an order. Get outta here.
Ellen: Bless.
Alice: Um, so Athena knocks on the door, announces that it’s LAPD, and then she spies a curtain moving in the window. So she’s like, “yep, I know someone’s home. I saw you in the window. Open up.”
Bex: So for Sylvie, I’m Sylvia, I’m gonna use her name. ’cause we find it out, um, reluctantly opens the door. She’s like, “Oh, officer, how can I help you?” And Athena’s like, “You’re under a mandatory evacuation order.” And she’s like, “Yes, yes. I’m, I’m just getting ready to leave.” Um, and she tries to close the door and Athena, and Athena just barges her way into the house.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Like, I don’t think you can do that, ma’am, but
Ellen: Yeah. Well, Sylvia,
Bex: it’s, Athena
Ellen: says to her, “You can’t just come in here.” [01:46:00] And, uh, Athena says that she has to make sure that Sylvia isn’t under any kind of duress. And it turns out Sylvia kind of is under her own duress.
Bex: She’s under duress, but it’s not her own making.
Ellen: It’s her, it’s herself who’s duressing herself. Yeah, I don’t even know if that’s a word, but anyway, um, she, she says she can’t go outside. It’s not safe out there.
Bex: I do like how they had Athena realize what was going on. She’s trying to get Sylvia to leave and Sylvia’s like, “Oh, okay, I’ve got, I, I’ve gotta go get my shoes.”
So Athena just grabs a pair of shoes, like, “Here, let me help you put these on.” And as she’s holding them out to Sylvia, she notices that the bottom, the soles of the shoes are brand new. There’s not a mark on them, there’s not a scuff on them. It’s like nobody’s wor them. And she realizes that those shoes have never been outside and asks like, “When was the last time you went outside?” and [01:47:00] Sylvia’s like, yeah, never.
Alice: Yeah, it’s been seven years since she left the house. And Athena’s like, “Yeah, you weren’t gonna evacuate, were you?” Sylvia’s like, “It’s not safe out there.” And it’s like, honey, it’s not safe in there either.
Bex: I have a feeling that it’s probably safer out there than it is in there, but you’ll figure that out shortly.
We get a quick, um, exchange between Bobby and May, I don’t know who called who. Um, but Bobby is finishing up at the bus scene and he’s telling May on the phone that not to be scared and May is freaking out because she’s obviously been following through dispatch and noting where everyone is and realize that her mother is out where there is a potential landslide.
So she’s worried and Bobby’s like, “She’s probably just helping with the evacuations.” Um, and May is, is worried she’s, she’s asking Bob, you know, “Don’t you think it’s too soon for her to be [01:48:00] out there?” And Bobby tells her, “Your mom is just doing her job and I’m sure that she would want you to be doing the same thing.”
And he takes a beat and he goes, “Actually, no, she still wants you to quit.”
Ellen: Um, but just then there’s a beeping noise at the computer and May tells Bobby that she’s gotta go. And so they do. There’s a little symbol on the screen and it’s, it actually says next to it, “motion detected, Mount Lee.” And then I think later Josh actually says,
Bex: yeah, which means absolutely nothing to us. Um, I’m wondering anybody in any of our US listeners, did you know like what Mount Lee was at that point?
’cause we had no clue. Well, I had no clue. I don’t know. Maybe you guys had a clue.
Ellen: Oh, I just figured it was a, I don’t have any idea that they detected movement in a, like because of an earthquake or whatever. So it made sense. They were, they were detecting landslide.
Bex: Oh, it made sense. But you didn’t, [01:49:00] you didn’t have the, um, the connection that Mount Lee was the Hollywood sign.
Ellen: Oh, no, no, I didn’t know that.
Bex: Yeah, so that’s why I’m wondering, does everybody, like, is it common knowledge that the Hollywood sign is on Mount Lee?
Ellen: Ah, I see.
Bex: So, um, Athena and Sylvia have a bonding moment where they talk about the fact that they’re both scared, but they’re both going to be really brave and they’re gonna do the thing that scares them.
Athena is going to go to work, Sylvia’s going to leave the house, and that’s literally it.
Ellen: Yeah. Apparently Sylvia, she works at home, but she gets up every day and gets stressed and puts on makeup and everything. It’s a game that she plays with herself to promise herself that one day she might leave and then she never does.
Bex: Athena’s Athena’s like, well, today’s a really good day to do it because this hill’s about to come down the hill to come down by itself. So, you know, it’s gonna take you with it unless you actually leave right now. Um, so we cut back to dispatch where Josh and Maddie have [01:50:00] joined May and are staring at that little blinking motion detector where Josh informs May and us that it’s a motion sensor on Mount Lee.
Yeah, we kind of got that May.
Ellen: Thank you, Josh. Yeah, we, we worked that out already.
Bex: Um, Maddie is a little bit more informative where she tells us that Mount Lee equals Hollywood Hills and, um, the com towers for nine. There are some com towers for 9-1-1 up on those hills. May is a little bit worried because not only are the com towers up there, but her mother is up there.
So they’re worried like there the motion detector going off because there’s another quake. Um, Josh is like, “I’m not feeling anything. It might just be trespassers. Let’s take a look.” And they turn on the camera and the sign is moving.
Ellen: Yeah. Actually swaying back and forth. It’s like,
Bex: and as those three are staring at the Hollywood sign moving backwards and forwards, um, Athena has managed to convince Sylvia to leave.
Poor woman. So she [01:51:00] opens her door, she gets one foot outside, and then she immediately says, “No, no, no, no, I can’t do this.” And then Athena slams her back into her house as the house goes sliding down the hill. Breaks off from the cliff and there’s nothing but the curb with the number of the street left.
Ellen: Like there’s just bits of the front of the house remaining.
Bex: Yep. You would not think there was a house there anymore.
Ellen: And that’s what you get for building your house on stilts on the side of a hill.
Bex: Exactly. And meanwhile on Mount Lee, the Hollywood sign is now the “Ollywood” sign. Yeah. Because the H has completely fallen over. And now O and the L are a little bit askew as well. And that’s where we leave it
Ellen: on a literal cliffhanger.
Bex: No cliff slide. It’s not hanging. It’s not hanging. It’s fallen.
Ellen: Well, it kind of is. It’s like there is a cliff involved. Well, we don’t know. We don’t know that they’re hanging, but they kind of are.[01:52:00]
Bex: But yes, it’s a very good spot to stop the episode.
Ellen: Yeah. And uh, before the credits roll, we have a little, a picture of John Kemler, who it’s in loving memory of him. He died in 2020 of COVID. He was part of the production team.
Bex: He’s one of the drivers.
Ellen: Very sad. So yeah. Great start to the season. That was my, to the, the total sum of my, what I thought about this episode.
Bex: It’s, it is a good start to the season. It’s a good season opener.
Ellen: Yeah. I mean, it checked in with all, all of the characters and gradually showed us what’s happening with this emergency in a, a way that wasn’t too like, I mean, I guess they dragged out the emergency over the whole episode because they kept jumping back in time.
Bex: But then there’s also two components to [01:53:00] the emergency. So you start off thinking it’s just going to be the reservoir breaking and the flooding, but then no, it’s not just that. We’ve now got the added component of the landslide. Which according to the promo for next week’s episode, um, threatens a world famous landmark that’s,
Alice: oh, no, I wonder what it is.
Bex: That’s the most important thing about this apparently, is that the, the Hollywood sign is at threat.
Alice: Hang on! Is, is a, is Athena Grant, the,
Ellen: she’s the world famous landmark.
Alice: She’s the famous world famous landmark.
Bex: Uh, let’s continue, let’s find out. Um, says,
Ellen: tune in next week to,
Bex: it says, in the aftermath of the dam break, massive mudslides wreak havoc throughout Los Angeles as Athena fights to save herself and an agoraphobic woman.
After her house collapses, Bobby, Hen and Eddie rushed to save hikers endangered by the falling of the Hollywood sign. [01:54:00] Meanwhile, Buck and Chim must rescue a group of pregnant women who have been trapped in a submerged house.
Ellen: Wow. They really are putting a lot of detail into these things this time.
Bex: Yeah. I wonder if they’ve got a new person writing the promos for season four.
Ellen: Yeah. We’ll have to see if any, any, all correct. Yeah. Any stories have been cut out.
Alice: Well, they had a while to work out the storylines, so guess so. Yeah.
Bex: Uh, triggers for next week, we are continuing with the claustrophobia of being and being buried alive, but different person this time. We have depiction of childbirth and we have more flashbacks to assault, more depictions of grief, kidnapping, which is an interesting one, again with the natural disaster. But this time it’s an earthquake causing a mudslide or a landslide. Um, we have a man sinking into, they say quicksand. Don’t think it’s quicksand. I think it’s just mud, [01:55:00] but he’s stuck in it and sinking fast. Depiction of mental illness, specifically agoraphobia and depression, and pregnant women and babies at threat. . This one’s not my favorite episode.
Ellen: It’s not?
Alice: It’s not super fun, is it?
Bex: No.
Ellen: Oh, there’s a lot of, um, oh, I, yeah, I have seen it already. Um, I won’t say that, but there’s a lot of like really tense situations that Yeah.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: Uh, anything else we wanna say about episode one?
Alice: Um, I forgot how funny it was.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Like the elevator music thing. I laughed out loud ’cause I totally forgot about that part.
Ellen: Right. It had funny moments in between all the
Alice: Yeah, like I think it was definitely like a lighthearted opening ’cause next week’s is not lighthearted.
Bex: Uh, it will not surprise anyone to know that [01:56:00] this episode was written by Juan Carlos Coto, who I think does a really good job of balancing like funny interpersonal interactions with high tension, um, of
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: The disasters. Yeah.
Ellen: I always know that we’re in for a good time when it’s, um, Juan Carlos Coto writing,
Alice: uh, the, at least it’s not a tsunami bit as well. It was great. Yeah. But yeah, it was good. Like it’s, it’s hard to judge this episode because there’s so much happening in season four that I just sort, I almost wanna rush through it, but I’m like, no, just enjoy the episodes as they come.
Bex: It’s also difficult with the season openers in that there’s always a sense that they have to one up the previous season.
Ellen: Mm-hmm.
Bex: And with the previous season being in a tsunami, like where do you go from there?
Alice: Yeah. And it’s like, oh, it’s a dam break. It’s like, okay, that I don’t care. [01:57:00]
Bex: But then it’s, you also have to remember that much like Supernatural this season got impacted. So I wonder what they would’ve planned.
Like were they always going to do this storyline? Yeah. Or something.
Ellen: They would have had a few more episodes.
Bex: Was it something that they came up with? Like, shit, we have very restricted shooting capabilities. Um, we have to completely rearrange it.
Alice: It’s definitely interesting that they did like another sort of floody,
Bex: another water based emergency?
Alice: Um, like di like exactly the next season after the tsunami.
Ellen: Yeah. Well, no one had to get into any water, so obviously they, they couldn’t go to Mexico to do their um, yeah. Big tank titanic tank thing.
Alice: I know, right? Thank God that they did the tsunami episodes the season before, because if they’d had it planned for this season, it would’ve never happened.
Bex: Yeah,
Ellen: yeah.
Bex: Anyway, that’s, I just think that it’s really, [01:58:00] it’s always really interesting around when there are real life events that you know have impacted stories. There’s always that. What could have been you, if they didn’t have the rider strike? What could have happened in this TV show or that TV show?
If they didn’t have the pandemic what could have happened? What story lines would’ve changed? What would they have done differently? Yeah. I’m looking at you Supernatural.
Alice: We’re always side eyeing Supernatural,
Bex: because I think they did well for a, a, like mid pandemic, um, episode with trying to work it go, trying to minimize the amount of people on set and everybody being in bubbles and everything like that.
I think that it doesn’t cut it, it doesn’t come across as a, oh shit, we’re on like bare bones here.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: If you didn’t know already that they were in the middle of a pandemic when they shot this, you possibly couldn’t tell.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: You would just think that [01:59:00] they were referencing the pandemic.
Ellen: Yeah, well done, 9-1-1.
Alice: Even if they did completely ruin the timeline of season three by focusing on the pandemic.
Ellen: Yeah, we won’t, we won’t asked too many questions.
Bex: Oscar ate the timeline and then they lost Oscar, so,
Ellen: yeah, that’s right.
Alice: Justice for Oscar.
Ellen: All right. So please do let us know, uh, what you thought about this episode. Are you excited for season four? Don’t tell me any spoilers though, but you can generally express your excitement on what’s to come.
Bex: Your very generic, non-specific excitement.
Ellen: That’s right. You can leave comment.
Alice: Can’t wait for when the blank blanks blank. It’s gonna be great.
Ellen: Okay. Just, just tell us what you thought about this episode, then.
Don’t, don’t, don’t give us anything. Um, leave a comment on Spotify or on the blog [02:00:00] post on thatweewooshow.com. Uh, or you can email us and other, other ways. Just go to the website and everything’s there. Thank you very much for listening this week, and we will see you next time for episode two, which is called “Alone Together”. See you then.
Bex: Bye.
Alice: Bye.
Ellen: 9-1-1 is a fictional show, but many of the situations portrayed happen in the real world too. If any of the topics we’ve discussed in this episode have affected you, please know you are 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.
[outtake]
Alice: Like, yes, they were like mirroring the real world, but I think a lot of it was also [02:01:00] just COVID safe practices on set as well.
Ellen: They were busy ruining the Supernatural finale.
Alice: I was about to say, should we bring it up and Ellen just brought it up.
Ellen: No, let’s not. Let’s not go there.
Bex: No, let’s not.
Ellen: I’ll just start ranting again. Still salty about it.
Bex: And while I always enjoy hearing you rant because it’s usually me ranting, um, perhaps this is not the time nor the place.
Ellen: No, that’s okay. I’ve got another different show for that. Yes. Which I have ranted liberally. Um, actually if you listen, if I went back and listened recently to our episode that we did like just after the finale and we were just so upset about it.
Alice: Oh, you were so mad. It was great.
Ellen: Oh, so mad.
Bex: So if you wanna know Ellen’s thoughts on the Supernatural Season finale, uh, check out the Mixtape Book Club podcast. Yeah. Um, I’m not sure which,
Ellen: like we were so like, it was like the third or fourth [02:02:00] episode. It was like really early on.
Bex: Okay. There you go.
Ellen: And before then we were like really hopeful about what was coming.
Alice: It was so hopeful. It was so cute to listen to because I listened to like some episodes where you had like specific guests on like, I think the first episode I listened to was the one with um, Bendingsignpost.
Ellen: Oh yeah.
Alice: And then I went back to listen to it and like the episode before the final finale aired, you were like, “Oh my God, like it’s airing this week. It’s gonna be so good. Like what do we expect from it? Rah rah rah.” And then the episode after you were just like, “Yep, cool. So this fucking show and did this. And there’s some books about it who the fuck cares.” Yeah. It was great. 10 outta 10, would listen again,
Ellen: It was a time. It was definitely a time. Speaking of a time, 2020.
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