Welcome to That Weewoo Show: a podcast where Alice, Ellen and Bex watch and discuss every episode of ABC’s TV show, 9-1-1.
In this episode we discuss episode 4 of the sixth season of 9-1-1, titled “Animal Instincts”.
The 118 race to the rescue when a birdwatcher is trapped under a tree. Chimney is in for a wild ride when he tends to a drunk driver. Maddie helps a mother and her young daughter when an abusive father shows up at their house.
Content warnings for episode 6.04:
car accident (car vs cyclist vs other cars), child at threat, claustrophobia, crush injuries, dog at threat (consumption of opioids), dognapping, domestic violence, drunk driving, discussion of fertility issues, and discussions of sperm donation.
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Episode Transcript
Maddie: [00:00:00] 9-1-1. What’s your emergency?
Ellen: Welcome back to That Wee Woo Show, a podcast where we watch and discuss episodes of the ABC show 9-1-1. I’m Ellen.
Alice: I’m Alice.
Bex: And I’m Bex.
Ellen: And, uh, here we are in season six. We’re a few episodes in, but in this episode we’re gonna talk about number four, and we’re just gonna do one episode this week.
Um, we did hurry through ones we didn’t like last week, but this, this episode is one that we like more than the other ones, so we’ll do a whole episode-
Bex: Or-
Ellen: … for it in number four …
Bex: like more or hate less?
Alice: Hate less.
Bex: Sorry, that’s a very-
Ellen: I didn’t hate this episode …
Bex: glass half full, half empty sort of perspective
Ellen: Yeah, that was very… like- I, I did, I thought this one was kinda [00:01:00] cute. Um, there were parts of it I was like, “What is actually happening here?” But anyway, we’ll get to that. Um, before we start talking about it, though, we have to say thank you to Kiera for sending us some pictures and stuff of your time at the con. That’s so exciting. All your amazing ops and everything. Thank you for sending that.
Bex: Yes, and a little bit of the, uh, sort of the boots-on-the-ground reporting of the Rescue Verse Con. Uh, we’re insanely-
Ellen: That’s the one
Bex: … jealous that we didn’t get to go.
Alice: So jealous.
Bex: Uh, but we’re very thankful for you to, um, to let us know how it went, and once again, for spreading the word about That Wee Woo Show. And thank you for telling Aisha not to listen. We appreciate that.
Ellen: We haven’t said anything bad about Aisha. We love her.
Alice: We love Aisha.
Bex: We love her. No, no. But Aisha will listen, and then she would hear what we’re saying, and she would report back to Oliver, and then-
Ellen: Oh. Ugh. [00:02:00] Okay.
Bex: It’s, it’s a slippery slope, really.
Alice: It is, yeah.
Ellen: Oh, well, let’s, let’s get on with it then. Um, Alice, you wanna remind us what happened l- last week?
Alice: Uh, yeah, so last week on 9-1-1, in our double episode- Buck was affected by the loss of a victim on a call-out. Hen failed med school. Chimney and Eddie were also there. Uh, meanwhile, Athena and Bobby cracked the case of the missing child who apparently inspired Athena to be a cop
Ellen: Allegedly.
Alice: Uh, yeah.
Bex: Mm. This week I am instituting a new drinking game because whoever is writing the promos for these episodes is just, uh, they’ve given up. Because literally every single week the 118 race to the rescue.
Yeah. Um, I know we’ve mentioned it before. They do. We’re, we’re heading into Paw Patrol territory, so now I am officially [00:03:00] making it a rule that every time I have to say race to the rescue, someone has to take a shot. Maybe me-
Ellen: Okay
Bex: … maybe someone else. If you’re listening out there and it’s five o’clock wherever you are, or it’s five o’clock somewhere in the world, as Buck says, um, please take a shot.
Ellen: Even if it’s like 10:00 AM.
Bex: It’s five o’clock somewhere. Uh because in this week’s episode, the 118 race to the rescue when a bird watcher is trapped under a tree, and not in the way that you would think. Chimney is in for a wild ride when he tends to a drunk driver. Maddie helps a mother and her young daughter when an abusive father shows up at their house. Eddie catches Christopher in a lie, and Buck begins a year of yes to possibilities and immediately receives an interesting proposal from a former roommate.
Alice: That, that’s, yep.
Ellen: I, I will say I had no idea what was coming in this episode. Like, uh, some of the things in that, in, in the summary are s- [00:04:00] self-explanatory, like-
Bex: Mm-hmm
Ellen: the mom and the daughter and all that stuff. Mm. But, like, the, the tree thing. That, I was like, “Oh, okay. The tree,” and like, whatever the hell is going on with Buck. I was just like-
Bex: That’s an interesting way to describe it, yes …
Ellen: what?
Bex: Um,
Ellen: but anyway.
Bex: Before we get too deep into discussing the episode, we’ll very quickly run through the triggers just in case you have not seen this episode before. Uh, triggers for bugs, which I’m assuming is the reference to worms at the beginning of the episode, ’cause that’s the only bugs that I could think of-
Ellen: Bugs …
Bex: in the episode. Um-
Ellen: Yeah …
Bex: we have a car accident, which is a car versus cyclist versus other cars. It’s a mess. We have a child at thir- oh, we have a child at threat.
We have claustrophobia, referring to the ornithologist stuck under the tree. Uh, crush injuries, see above re: ornithologist. [00:05:00] Uh, a dog at threat, by consumption of opioids. Question mark on whether it is actually dognapping or not, but we’re gonna just flag it just in case that, uh, is a trigger for you.
Domestic violence, drunk driving, discussion of fertility issues, and discussions of sperm donation. Bit of a spoiler there on that last one.
Alice: Just a little bit.
Ellen: I mean, if you, if you didn’t know what was coming, you might be a bit surprised by that as a trigger. You’d be like, “Sperm donation? Who’s donating sperm?” But yeah.
Bex: Uh, this week’s episode was written by… Well, Stacy R. Rose is given the credit for writing this episode, and she has done other episodes such as “There Goes the Neighborhood” and “Hero Complex”. Um-
Ellen: Mm
Bex: … so she’s has a tendency towards the more lighthearted, except for “Hero Complex”, ’cause that got dark very, very fast. [00:06:00] Uh, but to start with- Yeah … it was rather sort of lighthearted and somewhat comedic. Um, “Ghost Stories” definitely was.
Ellen: This one is, I don’t think this one is particularly lighthearted. I mean, it’s not-
Bex: I’m sorry, did you forget the whole sequence with Buck chasing after a Prius on a bicycle while “Bicycle” plays? Or-
Ellen: Yeah, I mean-
Bex: Or the entire, like, Hen and Buck drinking tequila at two o’clock in the afternoon while the rest of the team is coding a dog.
Ellen: Okay, okay. But this is, like … Okay, I’m gonna say I don’t think it’s designed to be, like, a funny episode. It just has funny bits in it.
Bex: No, no, it’s, it’s not, it’s not a, like, a comedy. It’s not a rib tickler, knee slapper comedy, but it’s just, it’s got a lot more sort of lighthearted, the sort of the upbeat dingly dingly music to it than-
Ellen: I guess so, yeah
Bex: other episodes. Especially coming off last week’s episode, which was, like- True … all dark, all serious all the time.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Yep. All right. Well, [00:07:00] we are starting with, um, once again, the 118 going out of their urban environment. We, we never work out how they get into the wilderness so easily, but, in some forests in Southern California somewhere. There is a, some beautiful opening shots here of the forest and the hills and stuff, right?
Bex: Mm.
Ellen: Um, oh, there is a, a sh- like, pictures of st- a stick insect and a bee at the beginning. Maybe that’s the bugs trigger. Like, if you can’t see bees on your screen, you might be triggered by that, I guess.
Bex: Okay. That is- So yeah … that is a valid point. I’d forgotten about the stick insect ’cause it had such an impact on the episode.
Ellen: Hey, if you’ve got a phobia of insects, then okay.
Bex: I-
Ellen: That’s fine …
Bex: I am not judging or questioning the phobia. I’m just saying that The stick insect was very, very minor in the [00:08:00] grand scheme of things
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Which is why I had trouble remembering that it was included in the episode But it was that, yes, because over the top of the vistas of Southern California we have a person attempting to be like a David Attenborough and do a, a wildlife narration about Southern California and its beautiful landscapes and its astounding variety of wildlife, um, which includes the Homo sapien. And the, the footage cuts to what is clearly supposed to be the point of view through someone peering through a set of binoculars at these two people who are birdwatching.
Um, except the camera shots never quite um, stick with the, the idea that it’s meant to be one person looking through a set of binoculars, ’cause there’s so many camera cuts from so many different angles that I don’t know what this guy- … would be doing as he’s racing backwards and forwards with his binoculars to get these different [00:09:00] angles.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah, well I think at the beginning it is meant to look like a documentary or something with different camera angles, but, but yeah, it doesn’t really work in the end for that. But anyway, this guy is creepily, like he’s a park ranger.
Alice: He’s so creepy.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: He’s, he’s watching these people through the binoculars as they peer confusedly into the trees.
Bex: Yeah. Are we, are we supposed to … Well, what are we supposed to think about this guy? ‘Cause he’s creepy as fuck.
Alice: I think he’s supposed to be creepy.
Ellen: Well, he’s just a, he’s weird. Like, he’s just wei- the, the whole, like, scene with him talking to them at the end is weird, so I think we’re just supposed to think he’s a creep.
But he d- he watches them as they move sort of over to a tree that has fallen over, and he’s like, “Oh no. No, don’t do that. Don’t do that.”
Bex: No, because the, um, of the two people that he’s watching, we have the female Southern California [00:10:00] ornithologist, which is a beautiful specimen, and then the lesser hopeful mate, which is her male companion.
Um, and the male companion has sort of gotten up close and personal with the root system of the tree to examine the worms that are crawling around in the root system.
Ellen: Mm-hmm
Bex: … which is what causes the ranger to freak out a little bit, because apparently, and I didn’t know that this could happen, but apparently it does, um, if a tree is blown over or knocked over but the root system or whatever is going on down there is not completely destroyed, there is a high probability that the tree will just snap back up to where it was.
Alice: Yeah, that’s insane.
Ellen: Yeah, that’s crazy.
Bex: And that’s exactly what happens here, and our male ornithologist gets crushed underneath this giant-
Ellen: He is right underneath the tree …
Bex: yes
Ellen: But he’s still alive, [00:11:00] amazingly. He gets kind of-
Bex: Yeah, somehow
Ellen: … crushed, but apparently she can hear him moaning under there. So yeah, the 118 come from wherever their house is all the way to the forest. Um- I don’t, I don’t know how far, how away this is though.
Alice: It’s, um, it’s clearly the forest that’s next to, um, the Santa Monica Pier.
Ellen: Yeah. Right next door in the hills there- Yeah … with all the expensive houses. And, um, like, they’re t- she’s trying to dig him out with her hands, which doesn’t work.
Um, but the rest of them are like… Well, Hen’s still the captain at this point. Bobby hasn’t returned, so she’s telling everybody what to do.
Bex: She’s doing a very good job too, and nobody i- She seems to be accepting of being called Cap at this point. She’s not, like, arcing up every time someone calls her Cap.
Alice: Yeah, not every time.
Bex: Um, so Hen [00:12:00] requests a air ambulance. That’s gonna be about eight minutes out. Hen’s like, “Well, that’s, that’s too long. We need to do something now.” So we’ve got Eddie and Chim are assessing and working on the victim. Uh, Buck and background firefighter and several other firefighters are going to be, uh, pulling the tree back down while Hen gets to wield a chainsaw.
Ellen: Is it the background firefighter?
Bex: It’s the background firefighter. I was very excited.
Ellen: Ooh.
Alice: We were very, yeah.
Ellen: I need to watch it again then and work out what he looks like so I can look for him in the background.
Bex: Oh, he’s, it’s, he’s an older guy with a gray mustache. Yeah, that’s, okay. Like, if you, if you go onto, um, if you go onto Twitter, like his-
Ellen: He was the one who brought, brought the, um, turnout over for Chim to put over the guy.
Bex: Yeah.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Okay.
Bex: I was just excited because Hen gets to actually use a chainsaw in this episode. I don’t think we ever really-
Ellen: Yeah
Bex: get to see her do the cool stuff. [00:13:00]
Alice: And she’s like, “I’m the captain, I’m doing the cool stuff.”
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: Yeah, so they, like, anchor the tree to, um, a, a rock, like a large rock, and sort of set up a pulley system so they can pull the tree back over And it takes a bit of effort by everybody, but they manage to do it, and so they can get the guy out. Except that he’s probably bleeding internally, so he’s not doing great.
Bex: So they get him, um, onto a backboard. They start, uh, doing c- Chim starts doing compressions. Eddie’s getting the life pack out to try and shock him back into, uh, sinus rhythm. Um, the female ornithologist is in the background begging them to save her brother, and the ranger looks at her and goes, “Oh, your brother?”
And you can just-
Alice: Yeah, yeah …
Ellen: he’s going, “Ew.” He’s thinking with his dick right now.
Bex: Oh, 100%.
Ellen: He’s just… Ugh. [00:14:00] Yeah, it’s creepy.
Alice: Oh, God.
Bex: They do manage to revive, um, her brother. They get him, uh, headed for the ambulance, and the ranger makes his move. He tells the, uh, the female ornithologist that, “Oh, there’s probably not gonna be enough room in the ambulance, so I can drive you to the hospital.”
Um, Eddie, God bless him, I don’t know if he’s just clueless as to this is what flirting looks like, um, and just pipes up without realizing it, or if he understands that this is what flirting is, and he’s stepping in to protect the female ornithologist. But he pipes up and goes-
Alice: Yeah, I’m pretty sure he was like, “Yeah, this is creepy as fuck.”
Bex: Uh, he pipes up and goes, “Oh, no, there’s plenty of room in the ambulance. You can definitely ride with your brother.” Um, so the ranger’s, like, shooting death glares at Eddie and goes, “Oh, well, um, maybe you should, you know, take my number c- in case you, like, wanna go bird watching without your brother, ’cause, you know, it’s dangerous out here for female bird watchers.”[00:15:00]
And the woman is like, “Are you seriously fucking asking me out after my brother almost died?”
Alice: Yep.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, he is.
Bex: And the ranger, the ranger looks at Buck and Eddie as, like, the two sort of closest males sort of within his age group, um, for support. He’s like, “You know what? I, I thought I sh- I thought maybe that was my shot.”
Ellen: Mm.
Alice: Yeah, no.
Bex: And Buck’s like, “Yeah, no, you thought wrong.” Um, specifically he says, “I think maybe you have bad instincts.” Um, and if you-
Ellen: Ding, ding, ding …
Bex: had… Yeah, if you wanted to get drunk today, um, this is the episode to play a drinking game to. Uh, because we did the count, and if you take a shot every time someone says the word instinct or instincts, you are gonna be very drunk very quickly.
Ellen: Yep. They do say it, like, every few minutes in this one. Feels like.
Bex: Eight times. I… We went through and we counted earlier. [00:16:00] Eight times-
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: In the entire episode. I don’t know if that beats karma or some of the other themed episode. It just, it’s really obvious in this one for some reason.
Ellen: Yeah. Everyone’s having some instincts or, or lack of them.
Bex: Except Buck and Maddie. Buck and Maddie don’t get instincts
Ellen: Oh
Bex: And I went through and double-checked
Ellen: I think Buck does say instinct
Bex: In relation to Hen, not in relation to himself.
Ellen: Okay. Well, he’s too busy having a year of yes anyway, so I’m gonna-
Bex: Oh, my God Oh, God, his fucking year of yes. Yeah, so apparently he’s worked his way through the Alcoholics Anonymous handbook, has not found the answers that he’s wanted, so he’s gone down to Barnes & Noble and found the s- self- the self-help section, and has come away with The Age of Absolutely, which is literally just the year of yes.
Ellen: Th- yes And, and he’s like, “We don’t do anything that makes us feel uncomfortable or that scares us.” And Maddie’s like, “What about running into [00:17:00] burning buildings?”
Alice: Yeah, like you do that all the time.
Ellen: And he’s like, “No, that’s work.”
Alice: And he’s just like, “No, that’s fine.”
Bex: It’s really sad be- That’s just work … he’s, um, he’s saying, you know, like, “Before I came to LA, before I joined the 118, I was off going and for adventures and, you know, I went new places.”
And Maddie’s like, “Yeah, that’s ’cause you were desperately lost and lonely and searching for something, and you have since found that something in the 118 and in LA. That’s why you don’t need to go out and have adventures. Like-” Mm “… what could you possibly be looking for now?” He’s like, “Well, I don’t know.”
Ellen: Yeah, it’s not e- that’s not enough for him, apparently.
Alice: Yeah, that’s what he’s gonna look for.
Bex: He’s gonna look for a new couch, except it’s not a couch. It’s- ‘Cause the couch is just a metaphor. It’s also like- Just a yes … a literal couch. He does still need a couch, but it’s also the metaphorical couch.
Ellen: Um- But not yet. Tonight he’s gonna go out with his old s- old roommate, Connor, and his new wife.
Alice: So during this scene, my original notes, um, [00:18:00] were that, like this would’ve been the perfect storyline to expe- like to, uh, explore by Buck Mm-hmm.
Ellen: Yeah. ‘Cause
Alice: it’s like the year of yes.
Ellen: Well, the whole, the, the scenes with him and his two, and his buddy and, like, h- his wife were very homoerotic. Yes. They were, they were a bit flirty.
Bex: That’s just Buck.
Alice: It is, yeah.
Ellen: Yes.
Bex: Like, I think Buck just, like, flirts as easily as he breathes, so it’s just how he relates to people.
Alice: Yeah, his default is flirt, yeah.
Bex: Yeah. Um, yeah. So Connor was apparently one of the, uh, frat boys, though, although they’re not boys ’cause they were young men, um, that Buck was living with sort of in the pre-Abby phase of his life.
Ellen: Is this, is this one of the guys that was in “Buck Begins”, or is this, like-
Bex: I don’t think- …
Ellen: a dif- a new character …
Bex: although I could be mistaken, I don’t think Connor was one of the guys down in the bar that convinced Buck to come [00:19:00] to LA. Could be wrong. Didn’t actually care enough to go back and check. Um-
Ellen: We did see Buck’s frat boy house at one point, but I don’t remember who was there.
Bex: Did we see any of the actual frat boys, though? Or just the aftermath? Yeah, kinda.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, they were watching a game or something when he… I don’t know. Anyway, that was a long time ago.
Bex: It was. And while I would not put it past one, the 9-1-1 team to have gone back to the, like, background actors that they cast in that initial scene and dragged them back, ’cause we know that they love recycling their actors and their characters.
Alice: No, that’s what I thought. C- um, Connor is the one in Peru.
Bex: He wa- He is the Peru dude?
Alice: Yes.
Bex: Yes?
Ellen: Well, he l- he looked kinda familiar.
Bex: Confirmed?
Ellen: That’s why I was asking whether we’d seen him before.
Alice: Okay, cool. Yeah, according to the 9-1-1 Wiki-
Ellen: I feel like I’ve seen this guy …
Alice: um, Connor’s the guy who invites him to LA.
Bex: Excellent. I stand corrected, and I stand happily.
Ellen: Awesome. Uh, but we’ve not [00:20:00] gotten there yet.
Bex: We also get… No, we also do get a quick, um, little droplet, um, of future Maddie storyline in that she is looking for a nanny for Jee so that she and Chim can go back to work without having to worry about whatever’s happening with Jee.
Nothing comes of it in this episode-
Ellen: Mm-hmm
Bex: … except that she makes a joke about how maybe Buck’s year of yes could be quitting his job and becoming the Manny, uh- Yeah … which Chim says no.
Ellen: Yeah, because everyone she finds is either, like, 12 or a serial killer. So yeah, that’s in- that’s encouraging. Um, but anyway, we’re going to Chris and Eddie, and apparently Eddie has done the shopping, but he’s bought the wrong stuff.
Bex: I feel like Chris went with him because he, there does appear that a box of cereal that Eddie did not approve of ended up in the grocery bag. [00:21:00] Uh, but apparently Chris wasn’t-
Ellen: Yeah, actually it’s the first, when I watched it earlier I, I thought that Chris was the one who had like ordered this online or something and Eddie had gone to pick it up because he put, he ordered an extra box of like sugary cereal. Yes. But then Chris is saying, “This is the wrong kind of mayo,” and Eddie’s like-
Bex: I’m assuming that-
Ellen: “It was on sale,” so-
Bex: maybe-
Ellen: they obviously both went …
Bex: they might be, I’m assuming that they both went, and perhaps while Eddie was in the condiment aisle rather than supervising his father and making sure he bought the correct mayo, um, Chris had snuck off to the cereal aisle and had snuck, um, Space Stones into the shopping trolley.
Although why Eddie didn’t see it when it was being rung up, I don’t know.
Alice: Pro- yeah, clearly wasn’t paying attention.
Ellen: No.
Alice: I mean, surely everyone who has kids has managed to, like the kids manage to sneak something into the shopping without them noticing.
Bex: Yeah, but we normally notice by the time we get to the checkout
Ellen: Yeah. But he did get a healthy one too, um, [00:22:00] so it, it’s balanced. Uh, but his phone rings and it is actually the name of the school on the phone, which is good.
Bex: Yes. Thank you.
Ellen: Better than medical school.
Um, but someone is on the phone to tell Eddie that, um, Chris hasn’t been going to science club.
Bex: And as a parent, I have issues with this phone call because it seems like it’s been going on for a while So why are they shocked now?
Alice: Like, shouldn’t they call him after the first one? Yeah.
Bex: Exactly, especially since it’s-
Ellen: Yeah, they were expecting him to be there and he’s not there.
Bex: It’s an after-school club, clearly. So isn’t there issues perhaps if the kid was in school and then doesn’t show up for the after-school club? Um, my other issue is who’s pi- like, how is Chris getting home, like, after science club? Is Carla coming to pick him up, and has she just not realized that she’s been picking him up from the [00:23:00] park for the past- Yeah
however long? Like- Or is he going to the park- …
Alice: is he going to the park and then going back? Yeah …
Bex: and then hauling ass back to the school and sitting outside the classroom, like, and pretending that he’s been in science club this whole time. We get none of these answers. All of these details that I really wanna know are of no relevance in this storyline. We get none of them.
Ellen: No.
Bex: Um, the big issue is that Christopher has been actively lying to Eddie, and Eddie’s very offended by this.
Ellen: Yep. Chris is in trouble.
Alice: Chris is very much in trouble, even if the school is useless and probably should’ve been keeping track of their students a bit better.
Ellen: Yes.
Bex: Yes.
Alice: Uh, so we go to the station house, and Hen’s doing handover with the B shift captain, and then someone from off-screen goes, “Oh, have you got a minute, Cap?” and Hen’s like, “Oh, don’t call me that,” and turns around, and it’s Bobby who’s back.
Ellen: Yay.
Bex: Yay. [00:24:00]
Ellen: Yeah, I feel like Hen’s relief in seeing him is, like, so palpable that we’re all like- Oh, yeah … “Yay,” even though we just saw him in the last episode, so-
Alice: Yeah …
Ellen: we haven’t missed him that much.
Alice: Like, he’s back home, though.
Bex: So ostensibly he’s back because Samuel is out of hospital. He is back at home. Beatrice and Athena, probably mostly Athena, is working finding some kind of, um, home care. Uh, but I think the real reason that he has probably returned before Athena was ready to go is because Karen called him and ripped him a new one about letting Hen be captain and overloading her to the point that she failed medical school, or at least her neurology exam.
Ellen: Yeah, I assume that she must have told Bobby about this, or maybe she told Athena and Athena told Bobby.
Bex: No, I’m assuming-
Alice: Like, yeah, she probably-
Bex: … that Karen just
Alice: called. Oh, yeah, true, ’cause they do say something about Karen calling.
Ellen: Oh, yeah, Karen called Bobby and chewed him out.
Bex: Yeah, Karen called Bobby-
Ellen: Yeah, that’s right
Bex: and tore Bobby a new one.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: So doesn’t [00:25:00] matter-
Ellen: So I forgot about that, yeah
Bex: … that Hen didn’t tell. Karen called. And so Bobby has gone, “Oh, shit,” and has come back to LA to, uh, take over captaincy and give Hen a break.
Ellen: Yeah, she’s, he’s told her basically to take some time off, and she’s like, “Uh, I don’t want time off.”
Bex: Pretty much.
Ellen: And he’s like, “Just try doing nothing.” And for, for someone who has been so busy for the last several years, I’m guessing in Ed’s case, doing nothing is really, really difficult
Bex: Yes. Uh, Bobby, Bobby ends his, like, order to, you know, go home, um, and do nothing, uh, by telling her that if anyone asks you to do anything, just say no.
Which is hilarious because then it’s prece- it, then it follows on with, uh, Buck and his whole just say yes philosophy.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: And they’re both equally struggling.
Bex: Yes. [00:26:00] So Buck is at lunch with, uh, frat boy Connor and his wife Kameron, who I am very sad to report is Kameron with a K.
Alice: Yeah, Kameron with a K for some reason.
Bex: It just pained me every time I had to write that.
Ellen: I’ve never seen it spelt with a K before.
Bex: Like, could you … I, I just am … Like, the monogram possibilities that they missed out on.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Like, I feel like one of them should have changed the spelling of their name so that they could have, like, C and C co- on monogrammed on everything. Right?
Ellen: Uh, well, they’re telling stories about when they used to live in the frat house together, and the … And Connor’s like, “Oh, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a total frat house.” And Kameron’s like, “Five guys under one roof, that is a frat house.”
Alice: Like, how is it a frat house when they, none of them were in college, but sure.
Bex: I think it’s just the, the reference that it’s like- Yeah … full parties all the time. It’s just the young guys bashing a can. We, we did see the, the kitchen and it was full of, like, pizza [00:27:00] boxes and Solo cups.
Alice: Oh, yeah. So. It was, yeah.
Bex: Yeah, frat house.
Alice: I, I don’t know how Buck’s current loft is always so clean, and I guess it’s just because he’s never there.
Bex: Pretty much.
Alice: Um, or maybe it’s a serviced apartment and he has a cleaner in.
Bex: Ooh.
Ellen: That must be it, yeah.
Bex: Mm-hmm. That’s another possibility. Anyway, so we get the whole, the meet cute with Kameron and Connor. They met. It was cute. Possibly borderline creepy, but they’re calling it cute, so we’ll go with cute and have a happy ending.
Ellen: Yeah, they were in a bar.
Bex: Uh.
Ellen: She was reading a book in the bar, as you do.
Bex: He was creepy by sitting next to her to eat his takeaway. I don’t know.
Ellen: And, and talk to her- Um- … while she’s trying to read, which quite frankly is rude.
Bex: No.
Alice: Is so rude, yeah.
Bex: Yes, very rude. Uh, but happy ending, Buck says, so, you know, they’re, they’re doing it all.
They’ve got, you know, they met, they had marriage, they had house, they had kids, and Buckley, we, we don’t ask people about if they’re gonna have kids because you’ve just opened up a [00:28:00] can of worms.
Alice: Oh, yeah.
Bex: Because, yes, they would love to have kids, uh, but they’re having difficulty. And Buck tries to be supportive by saying, like, “I’ve heard of all of these, you know, other ways to assist with infertility problems,” immediately jumping to the assumption that it’s Kameron that is the s- the issue.
Alice: Look, to be fair- Mm. I don’t know whether Buck actually knows that there’s- that, uh, um, like how IVF and stuff works. Like, he’s just like, “Yeah, just do IVF,” and it’s just like, no, that’s not a possibility. And he’s like, “No, but, like, just do it, right?”
Bex: But it’s like IVF-
Alice: IVF equals baby? …
Bex: surrogacy and, like, all of these things, and Kameron is just getting more and more uncomfortable because she knows she’s not the issue, her husband is.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: But that’s a, it, whenever you, like whenever you hear infertility, everyone just assumes that it’s the f- the woman who is incapable, um, or having difficulties with fertility. No one ever suspects that it’s the man’s fault.
Alice: Yeah, why would it be the [00:29:00] man’s fault?
Ellen: Well, you know this is like-
Alice: Men never do anything wrong
Ellen: a, a taboo subject that, I mean, probably should be talked a- about more in the open, but this is a really weird conversation to have when you’re just catching up with somebody after-
Alice: It’s so weird, yeah
Ellen: … a long time.
Bex: Like they haven’t seen Buck in, or Connor hasn’t seen Buck in what, five years?
Alice: Yep, something like that.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, and this is the first time he’s meeting Kameron, so it’s like-
Bex: Yeah …
Ellen: just jump straight in with the, “Oh yeah, I don’t have enough sperm.”
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: But that it, it makes-
Ellen: All right
Bex: … sense because it’s, yeah, actually- It, yeah, it gets weirdo … I don’t have enough sperm. Um, so can we have some of yours, please?
Alice: Yeah, we’d like yours.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah.
Alice: Because you’re, you’re white- Oh, God … blonde with blue eyes, and so we would like some of your sperm, please. It’s so weird.
Ellen: It’s just, it’s like r- extremely awkward as well. Like, not just a weird conversation to have, but they’re all just sitting there staring at each other and it’s like, “Um, uh.”
Yeah. But we don’t get to find out what the answer is yet because Buck apparently has to do some soul-searching first. [00:30:00] So, um- … we’re going back to the station house, uh, where Eddie is explaining what’s going on with Chris. “He’s been lying right to my face.” Oh, they’re, they’re having a chat about what is Chris is doing, so that this is where we find out that he was going to the park with his friends.
Bex: Yeah. Uh, Hen, yeah, Hen’s making some good contributions as a fellow parent. Um, Chim is making contributions-
Ellen: As the only other parent in the room. Like, whose child-
Bex: Well, it’s not even him because-
Ellen: who doesn’t have a toddler
Bex: Jee has not reached this sort of instance, but he’s sort of- No, no … he’s like, “I’m contributing to this conversation because I too was once a preteen.”
“And I remember, like, making my father’s life hell.” So they’re having this conversation, they’re sort of, um, applauding Eddie’s approach, and then they realize that, um, Buck is not contributing to this conversation, and they sort of all of them look at the end of the table, and Buck is dissociating. [00:31:00] He’s just-
Ellen: Oh yeah, he’s just staring into space.
Bex: He’s just sitting there, off in his-
Ellen: He’s far away
Bex: … off in his own world. His head is still spiraling about the fact that Connor has asked him to be a sperm donor. Um, Eddie initially assumes that Buck is, like, um, not participating in the conversation because he’s been Chris’ accomplice in some way,
or he, that he knew what Chris was doing and didn’t clue Eddie in to what was happening. And Buck’s like, “No, I had no idea. Um, I don’t have any secrets. No, no secrets here.”
Ellen: No, nothing weird here. All is fine
Bex: Um, but before they can drill into Buck and sort of extract this secret that he very clearly has, um, Bobby comes up to the kitchen and, uh, yells at Hen because I didn’t realize, like I’m, we’re starting this scene and I’m setting up, okay, Eddie’s here, Buck is here, Chim is here.
Hen is wearing a jacket over her y- Oh no, she’s in [00:32:00] civilian clothing. Oh, she’s not meant to be here. Yeah.
Ellen: No.
Bex: Which is exactly what Bobby says.
Ellen: Well, I didn’t get, I didn’t even realize that until Bobby said “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be on leave.” And I’m like, “Oh, she’s not wearing her uniform.”
Totally paying attention. But Hen is, like, trying to make something up on the fly. She’s like, “Oh, I had to pick up some kombucha that I left in the fridge.”
Bex: Yeah. Bobby’s like, ” really?”
Ellen: But she couldn’t find it.
Bex: “Where’s the kombucha?” And I’m going, “Bobby, it’s clearly still in the fridge ’cause she hasn’t picked it up yet. She’ll pick it up when she’s going home.” Like-
Ellen: Yeah …
Bex: give her a chance. Um, but she falters under his severe dad look, um, and finally admits- … that, um, it’s too quiet at her house.
Karen’s at work. Denny’s with his friends at the park, or maybe he snuck off to science club, who knows. Um, Toni has apparently moved out at some point ’cause [00:33:00] she was there, now she’s not.
Ellen: Oh, yeah. Well, did she go off with her new fiance? She- Maybe they’re married already …
Bex: maybe. I don’t know. We, they don’t, nobody tells us. Um, they just dropped that thread, uh, pretty quickly.
Ellen: Hmm.
Bex: So yes, nobody is in her house. Hen has nothing to do. The silence is deafening. She just needed to come somewhere with a little bit more noise, and at that exact moment the alarm goes off, and it’s very noisy. So she got a wish.
Ellen: Yeah, but then everyone’s gonna head out.
Bex: But everyone’s gonna leave.
Ellen: And she’s gonna be left behind. And then Bobby tells her, “Don’t be here when we get back,” but he says it with love.
Bex: Yes. So we follow the 118 to the scene that they just got called to, which is the cyclist versus car versus other cars, um, down at 8th and Alameda.
Ellen: Yeah, it’s a big mess.[00:34:00]
Bex: Yes. Apparently, uh, the cyclist was doing his cyclist thing. A car swerved into the bike lane, um, hit the cyclist, and then veered into oncoming traffic, which then could have caused chain reaction.
Ellen: Yeah, so the cyclist has a broken fibula and- Yeah … um, but he’s okay. But they don’t re- I don’t think they realize that, um, until Chim goes and has a look at one of the cars that’s crashed that the driver is still inside and he’s unconscious and he’s got blood all over his face.
So I don’t know if they didn’t bother checking the cars first. They just, you know, made sure the cyclist was okay before they went ahead with-
Alice: Yeah, you’d think they’d- They’d spread out or something …
Bex: Chim … No, Eddie had the cyclist under control, so Chim went to find the driver. Bobby, in a rare display of not giving a fuck, calls across the scene, “Hey, Chim, do you need a coroner?”
Alice: [00:35:00] Yeah. Like, “Hey, Chim, is the guy dead?” Like, what?
Bex: Chim’s like, “No, he’s still alive, actually.” Like- … I mean, at this point he’s unconscious, so it’s okay, but could you imagine, like, being in a car accident-
Alice: It’s so weird
Bex: … and being trapped and you’ve got, um, LAFD going, “Hey, do we need a body bag over there?” Like, “No, I’m not dead yet.”
Yeah. Um-
Ellen: I feel better!
Bex: Uh, so yes, the, the, um, the driver is, uh, has a pulse. The pulse is strong with this one, as Chim says. Um, but he reeks of it like a distillery. Um, the accident has jammed the door, so Chim has to go around to the passenger side to gain access to assess the driver. Um, and while the sternum rub doesn’t wake him up, maybe it’s because Chim didn’t say like, “Hey, sir, can you feel me doing the sternum rub?” Like Eddie does.
Alice: Can you feel this? Can, can you feel it?[00:36:00]
Bex: That doesn’t work, but something else snaps the driver awake, and he looks up and he sees police lights, and he freaks out and he takes off. Unfortunately for Chim-
Ellen: Yeah, he turns the car back on
Bex: … he is still in the front.
Ellen: Yeah. Like, the car’s all smashed up to hell, but it, it has still got its-
Bex: And the engine still works apparently.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah.
Bex: Um, so yeah, he’s now, uh, actively fleeing from pol- police, and he’s kidnapped Chimney as well. Chimney’s going along for the ride. Mm-hmm. Buck, for some unknown reason, sees the Prius driving off and goes, “I won’t… I’m not going to leave this to LA- LAPD to resolve. I’m going to steal the cyclist’s bicycle,” which apparently was not at all damaged-
Alice: Literally. Which somehow worked.
Bex: … in the accident. “And I’m going to pursue the car on bike.”
Alice: Not just, [00:37:00] like, not just that, he’s going to pursue the car on bike while “Bicycle” by Queen plays.
Bex: I, I really wanna know what, which came first. Did they have this scene where they, they have Buck on a bicycle chasing this guy and someone goes, “You know what would be the perfect song to go over the top of this?”
Or did they go, “I really wanna use ‘Bicycle’. Can someone come up with a storyline that involves somebody riding a bicycle so that we can use this song?”
Ellen: Well, their original soundtrack was probably, like, the Benny Hill theme It’s just completely ridiculous.
Alice: It’s so, like, uh, I just, I love Eddie just being like, “Buck, where the hell are you going?”
Bex: Eddie’s all of us at this point.
Alice: He just looks so defeated. He’s like, “What the fuck?”
Ellen: And this guy’s speeding off down the road and around corners and everything, and somehow Buck manages to catch up with him.
Alice: And get in front of him. He- Like, what?
Ellen: And get in front of him.
Bex: The, um, [00:38:00] now th- there is an explanation for that, because Buck’s still, like, Buck is still in full turnout. He still has his radio on, and he’s still tuned into, either he’s tuned into whatever channel LAPD are on, or LAPD are broadcasting on a wide band. So LAPD, who are in pursuit of the guy, are calling in the guy’s movements.
And so Buck is hearing this, and so he’s using shortcuts through, like, parks and residential areas. He’s not staying on the roads to try and get ahead of this guy.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: It still makes no fucking sense that he catches up with this guy. It’s still, yeah.
Alice: It’s so funny. You know? Because, like-
Ellen: And why does he get, he get, he jumps out right in front of the car and goes, “Stop.”
Alice: Luckily, the guy does.
Bex: But the thing that really, like, I don’t buy it, is Oliver on the bicycle looks like he’s off for a Sunday cruise. He, there is no haste in his [00:39:00] pedaling. He does not look like he is going, and I know that he probably isn’t going at full speed because of, you know, like, cameras and being able to catch him on film.
Um, but it just kind of-
Ellen: Hmm
Bex: … it takes away the credibility. Kenny, on the other hand, does an amazing job in this scene, ’cause he is freaking the fuck out.
Alice: He’s freaking out.
Bex: And his panic and fear is absolutely palpable. Like, he’s trying to put the seatbelt on. The seatbelt is jammed, so he’s grabbing hold of the Jesus handle. And he’s trying to talk this guy down. And telling-
Ellen: He, he does a great job of talking us through it.
Bex: Yeah, he’s telling the, uh, the, the driver that, you know, human beings are driven by animal instincts. So we take a double shot, because not only we get instincts, but Kenny says the episode title.
Ellen: The actual episode title.
Bex: You know, the four human instincts, you know, being fight, flight, feed, and fornicate, and the driver is pretty much smack fairly in the middle of flight. And [00:40:00] we, he manages to explain to the audience that this guy has a pretty severe traumatic brain injury, because he has no idea where he is or even who he is, because he doesn’t recognize himself in the rear vision mirror
Alice: Yeah, ’cause he is, again, covered in blood
Bex: Yes. Uh, at which point Buck has caught up, rides out into the middle of the road, tries to stop them with the power of yes, I guess. Um, and it works. The, the driver slams on the brakes and stops within inches of the hem of Buck’s turnout. Um, nobody can believe that it’s worked, but they’re all very relieved that it has.
And the driver is all like, “Oh, so what happens now?” And Chim’s like, “First, we’re gonna get you to a hospital, then jail. Definitely jail.” Yeah.
Alice: So much jail.
Bex: But it’s such a ridiculous scene, but it’s also [00:41:00] fun.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: It’s so much fun.
Ellen: Yeah, I mean, I was laughing the whole time, but also completely ridiculous.
Alice: Yeah. Yeah.
Ellen: All right, so we’ve gotta go catch up with what, uh, Athena is do- what, what’s happening in Florida. Um, so Bo-
Alice: Athena needs her, um, mandated screen time.
Ellen: Yeah. Well, she-
Bex: But she gets screen time at the end too …
Ellen: she’s back at the end. Yeah, she’s back at the end, but-
Alice: It’s not enough …
Ellen: she’s gotta have a chat with her husband so Bobby is making some kind of weird-looking sandwich for dinner. Like … he’s reverting to his bachelor ways while she’s gone apparently. I’m looking at him, what he, what he’s got on his sandwich. I’m like, “Is it cheese?” And like I don’t, can’t see, but …
Bex: Yeah, so he’s, he’s having sandwiches for dinner. Um, Athena tells him that she has found some home help, uh, for her mom and dad, so she’s on her way back. Apparently, she has [00:42:00] also managed to squeeze in a visit with Harry. Yeah. I do love that-
Ellen: So we’ve got, we got a name drop of Harry. Yeah.
Bex: I love that, like, we get the name drops of Harry, um, even though he’s not in the show anymore.
Alice: Yeah, remember how Harry exists, guys?
Ellen: But his, his name’s still coming up in the, um, you know, the list of people at the beginning, you know?
Bex: I think maybe contractually he was still, like he was, his, was contracted that his name was gonna be on the credits and it’d be interesting to see if next episode his name-
Ellen: Even though they didn’t actually write him in at all.
Bex: Yeah, ’cause at some point they get, ’cause that was what, um, Michael’s character, Michael’s actor was bitching about, was the fact that because he got, he was a, um, like, uh, named in the credits, so he got paid whether he’s on an episode or not.
So I feel like, um, Ma- I’m gonna for- I’m gonna get his name wrong so I’m not even gonna try.
Ellen: Marcanthonee?
Bex: Um, yeah. Um, Harry’s actor, maybe he was in the same situation. Like, he got to the point with his contract that he gets paid no matter [00:43:00] what, no matter whether he was in an episode or not. But, and that contract is still running, so they had to finish that off- Yeah
and then he’s No longer going to be paid Yeah, but
Ellen: I, I was surprised that like it, he’s not in this season at all, but, you know, it’s a new season-
Bex: No, but that’s what I’m saying …
Ellen: and his name is still there Maybe,
Bex: well, maybe it was a-
Ellen: Maybe it was a multi-year con- contract
Bex: And so they’d already written or they’d already filmed, and then he’s gone, “Actually, no.” uh, I’m sure that there is logistics and legalities behind it, so maybe next week we’ll keep an eye out to see if his name shows up in the credits.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Or maybe he gets paid for the entire season. Who knows? Uh, but yes, he’s apparently grown a foot and a half since Athena last saw him, and she had to fight every instinct, like shot within her as his mother not to shove him into a car and take him back to Los Angeles
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: And that was literally the point of
Ellen: the scene
Yeah, Florida’s a long way, [00:44:00] a long way away from your mum.
Alice: Yep. The point of the scene was, “Hey, remember, um, how Harry exists?”
Bex: Remember Harry? We also need to get Athena to say the, like, the episode theme. So…
Ellen: Yeah, and they had to remind everyone that Bobby and Athena are now empty nesters.
Alice: That, that’s it.
Bex: Yes, because May has also moved out. Again. Still.
Alice: Still. Again. Yep.
Bex: Still. Um, so from Bobby and Athena FaceTiming, we cut to Eddie FaceTiming his dad because apparently he’s-
Ellen: Yeah. Apparently getting on-
Bex: … he and his dad are besties now
Ellen: … a bit better with… Yeah. Uh, but he’s now bitching to his dad about Chris. So he’s obviously just telling everybody about, about this lie that’s happening.
Alice: About how shit of a son Chris is. Or a child Chris is.
Bex: See, but I… Here’s the one thing I don’t understand because he, like, in the scene with [00:45:00] Hen and Chim where Chim was going like, “You know, I, I would completely understand skipping science club too,” Eddie said, “No, Chris chose to go to science club.”
So now he’s obviously chosen not to go to science club. So I’m-
Alice: I think he was using… What I took from it is that Chris was using science club as an excuse to go hang out with his friends. Like, there actually wasn’t, like he didn’t, he had no intention to go to science club.
Ellen: Yeah, well maybe he wanted to at the start-
Bex: I assumed he was-
Ellen: but then his friends were like- Yeah … “Hey, come to the park,” and now he doesn’t want to go to science club anymore because his friends-
Bex: That’s, that’s what I took from it, that he’d st- he initially started science club, and then the, um, the lure of his friends was too much. But I don’t understand Eddie’s point of view from this point on because, like, okay, cool, Chris doesn’t want to go to science club.
Don’t make him go to science club.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: ‘Cause he tells his father- Yeah … like, “I forced him to go to science club and he threw such a fit that his teacher called me [00:46:00] to tell him to, to tell me to come pick him up.” Yeah. So obvi- I mean, you can’t reward him for lying to you and sneaking away ’cause that’s dangerous, but unless you sunk a significant amount of money into this extracurricular, just-
Alice: Maybe
Bex: he doesn’t wanna go, don’t. He doesn’t have to go. Yes.
Ellen: Pick your battles.
Bex: Yes. Pick your battles.
Ellen: And apparently he gave him the, the cold shoulder all the way home. Um, and apparently R- Ramon says that, um, Eddie’s abuela is the one who originated it, the cold shoulder But, um, apparently Eddie was the one who perfected it.
Chris- And past-
Bex: Eddie is petty
Ellen: … Eddie might have absolutely bristled at this and got really upset, but he doesn’t. He just says, “Ha ha, very funny.”
Alice: Yeah. Eddie has grown.
Bex: Yay for therapy.
Ellen: But it’s, uh, he can’t help it if it’s his instinct to always wanna protect him.
Bex: And then Ramon tells [00:47:00] Eddie that, um, perhaps Eddie is overcorrecting, that perhaps because Ramon didn’t do his job as a father, Eddie is compensating by being too hard on Chris.
You know, Eddie had to grow up too fast, do too many things that he wasn’t age appropriate, so Eddie is trying to force Christopher to be a child and be dependent on him for far too long.
Ellen: He seems very self-aware for Ramon.
Bex: Maybe Ramon has also gone to therapy.
Alice: Maybe Ramon’s also going to therapy.
Ellen: I hope so. Yeah, if you don’t give Chris some independence, then how is he ever gonna learn to trust himself?
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Okay, so back at the Buckley bachelor pad. Yeah. Which I, I like that title. Um, Connor has come over to apologize f- to Buck for being weird as fuck. [00:48:00] And because it was like they blindsided him, and he feels really terrible about that.
Um, and Buck’s like, “Yeah, man, it was weird.” But no, he doesn’t say that. Um, “Yeah, you caught me off guard.”
Bex: Which is the polite way of saying, “Yeah, that was fucking weird.”
Alice: Yeah, that was fucking weird. Yeah.
Bex: But he does, um, ask the very obvious question, uh, which is why did after … We get it, they’re three years. Why after three years did Connor come back into Buck’s life just to ask for bodily fluids?
There is a booming business in the US for sperm donations. Why didn’t they just buy sperm or get sperm donated from an anonymous source? Um, and Connor says, you know, “We could do that. We could find an absolutely perfect specimen, um, and know stuff like what potential eye color they could have, uh, [00:49:00] potential IQ, whether they’re gonna grow up to be a scientist or an artist.”
Um, but for Connor, the important thing was whether they were gonna grow up to be a good person, and that for him was more important than the superficial stuff, and he knows that Buck is a good person, and he treats people well. My argument there, though, is that that’s very much not Buck’s genetics. That’s very much Maddie- Yeah
and the way Buck was raised. It’s very much a nature-nurture argument. I have a feeling that’s a lot more to do with nurture than it is nature.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: But that’s just me.
Ellen: Well, obviously he turned out okay kind of at this point, so he’s got the right genetics in there somewhere. It’s just don’t look at his parents too hard.
Alice: But, like, also his family history. Like, Maddie already had a freak-out that she’d given Jee, um-
Ellen: Mm-hmm
Alice: … faulty genetics, [00:50:00] and then it’s just like, “Oh, no, but, like, Buck’s genetics I’m sure will be fine.”
Bex: Yeah, that’s … We don’t g- I don’t remember, maybe it’ll come up in future episodes, whether they actually do some kind of medical screening or genetic screening to, um, to actually make sure that Buck is a candidate, a good candidate for sperm donation.
I think it w- I don’t know whether, Alice, whether you brought this up or whether it was just something that I saw floating round in the fandom, but kind of the audacity of asking a man who was created for the sole purpose of donating body parts to then continue to donate body parts as a grown-up.
Alice: Oh, yeah.
Ellen: Oh.
Alice: This is definitely a fandom thing.
Ellen: I didn’t even think of that.
Bex: Yeah.
Alice: Yeah. It’s very yikes.
Bex: I don’t know that anyone in the writers’ room put two and two together with that, but someone in the fandom- No … in the fandom picked that up very quickly.
Alice: Yep.
Ellen: But yeah, we still don’t get a decision because Connor tells him that, um, you know, “I know this is too [00:51:00] much. You don’t have to say yes. Like, don’t worry about it.” Um, but then we need to go to an emergency, which isn’t an emergency yet because these, this mum and daughter are having a lovely time telling scary stories to each other.
But then, Mom says, “Why don’t you help me make dinner?” And Clarabelle’s getting excited about that. But, um, her mom says something in Spanish, and I didn’t look it up. I j- and apparently the subtitles-
Bex: It literally s-
Ellen: … just say speaks Spanish.
Bex: Speaking Spanish.
Alice: Yeah, it just says speak Span- yeah. It’s like, oh, okay. That’s cool.
Bex: Once again, I am begging you, if there … Please, if you are creating transcripts or if you’ve got characters speaking in a language other than what the rest of the episode is in, for the love of God, subtitle it.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Or if you’re doing s- like, please, I, I, I know it’s a throwaway line, and it probably has no relevance for the rest of the scene-
Ellen: [00:52:00] Yeah, but the, the way she said it, it, it’s-
Bex: But I wanna know what they said.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. I wanna know what she said, ’cause she said something and it’s like, I don’t know, I can’t even imagine what it would be, but …
Bex: And she says it, uh, she says it too fast that I can’t, like, try and figure out phonetically what it is so I can type it into a search engine and figure it out.
Ellen: Okay, if any Spanish speakers are listening, what, what does she say here?
Bex: Yes, please. Um, but in, I mean, in the end it doesn’t matter because they never actually get to making dinner because before they get to the kitchen there’s a knock on the door. Um, the mother, whose name we later discover is Lourdes, goes and checks the door, and immediately it’s panic stations. And she tells, uh, Clarabelle that it’s time, and Clarabelle knows exactly what that means, and she goes into, um, the emergency plan that she and her mother have obviously put into place, which is she races into the bedroom.
Oh. She throws all the locks on the door. There’s like a bug out bag under the bed that she pulls out where there is a phone hidden [00:53:00] inside, and she uses the phone to call 9-1-1.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: And of course, because it’s a domestic violence situation, uh, Cat immediately routes it to Maddie.
Alice: Yeah, obviously.
Ellen: Yeah. This is k- kind, kind of
terrifying, though. Like, she is obviously panicking, um, because she tells Maddie that, um, “You have to help, it’s my dad,” and Maddie’s like, “Is someone hurting him?” And she’s like, “No, he’s found us. He’s gonna kill us.” So-
Alice: Yeah …
Ellen: obviously Maddie is also starting to have some flashbacks. Uh, poor Maddie, and poor Clary.
She’s terrified. Um, and she tries to tell Maddie where she is, but she gives the wrong address, and she’s not sure if it’s the right address ’cause Maddie can’t find it in the system and, um, but then Noah, who is our new dispatcher recruit, um, helpfully is able to look up … Like, apparently there’s a [00:54:00] lot of shouting going on, and he’s like, “Well, maybe someone else has called from the area and-” Like, I, this is such a leap, but it works.
Um, he finds, uh, the correct street name, so they’re able to work out. And there’s people coming, like there’s, police are coming already, so they’ll be there soon. Maddie tells Claribel to hide in the closet, um, so that she’ll be safe.
Bex: I will say it’s a, it’s a very well-done scene from sort of building tension point of view-
Ellen: Oh, yeah
Bex: because unlike a lot of other scenes, we don’t see what’s happening with Lourdes and her ex-husband. The f- the, the camera stays on Maddie and it stays on Claribel, but we can hear shouting. He,
Ellen: he’s shouting-
Bex: We can hear-
Ellen: … in the background, yeah
Bex: … um, yelling. We can hear, um, Lourdes yelling in Spanish. We can hear lots of banging. Um, but, like, but the audience is put in Claribel’s position. We have no idea what’s going on. It just sounds super scary. [00:55:00] Same as Maddie.
Ellen: Yeah, it’s terrifying.
Bex: Maddie has no idea what’s going on. So Noah has told Maddie that police are en route. Um, and Maddie immediately tells him, “Tell them to run cold,” because if the, um, the ex-husband hears sirens-
Alice: Hears the sirens, yeah
Bex: and sees lights, he’s going to panic. So go, go in cold. Don’t alert him. Then through the phone line and from Claribel’s perspective, it gets real quiet, and she tells Maddie- Aw … “I don’t hear my mom anymore.” And we find out that, um, the threat from her father and from Lourdes’ ex-husband is that, uh, Lourdes is undocumented.
Sh- he then, that the husband had always told her that she didn’t belong in this country, and she told Claribel that if he ever found them, he was going to take Claribel away, and the implication would be that Lourdes would be kicked back to Santo Domingo, which is where they’re from.
Ellen: Yeah. She says she, “He’s gonna take me. I don’t wanna go,” and Maddie tells her [00:56:00] that, “It, it’s the safest thing for you to do is to go with him. Let him take you.” And she- Clari’s just crying. She’s like, “Don’t make me, Maddie,” and Maddie is also crying.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Of course.
Ellen: It’s, it’s very tense. It’s, um, scary.
Bex: So Dad finds Clari in the closet. Um, Maddie has told Clari, “Don’t let him know that you’ve got a phone,” so she’s put the phone down and hidden it so Maddie can still hear what’s going on. Um, so- Reluctantly, Clary goes with her dad, following Maddie’s instructions, which is fine until she sees her mom in the living room. And like, there’s blood everywhere, furniture’s broken, her mom’s lying in the doorway unconscious, lifeless.
And so Clary just s- freaks out and she kicks her dad and starts hitting him, um, and manages to escape and run out the door. And so the dad goes after her to get her back and walks straight into the [00:57:00] barrel of a LAPD pistol.
It’s very dramatic. The, the cop was standing right by the doorway, and as soon as, uh, the dude, apparently his name is Steven, steps out, the LAPD officer just pops the gun right against his temple.
And Steven looks out at the vista of flashing blue and red lights, ’cause there’s multiple police cars and RA units waiting for him.
Ellen: Very dramatic.
Bex: Very dramatic.
Ellen: And thankfully, LAPD tell Maddie what’s happened, um, that sh- they’ve got the girl, she’s okay. And so Maddie is not worrying about it the entire rest of the night-
Bex: Yes
Ellen: as she hears what’s happened, so.
Bex: It’s a tense scene. It’s a tense storyline. It’s very well done, but once again, 9-1-1 writers, challenge you to give Maddie a storyline that doesn’t involve domestic violence, ’cause it seems to be their default. [00:58:00] And I know that it’s one of those situations where Maddie having personally experienced it makes her a good dispatcher to some extent, to be able to talk people through it, ’cause she’s sort of speaking from experience, much like when May was dealing with the, uh, the suicidal teen.
Uh- Mm-hmm … but it’s also, like, Maddie, Jennifer can do more. Maddie can do more. Let’s try doing some other storylines.
Alice: But she hasn’t had a domestic violence one this season yet.
Ellen: Hopefully this is the last one.
Bex: Could she, like, does she have to have one every season? Like, is it written into Jennifer’s contract?
Alice: Apparently.
Bex: She has to- Maybe … appear in X number of episodes, and every season has to be, like, X number of domestic violence or, like, intimate partner violence episodes?
Alice: Maybe.
Bex: Aw. I don’t know. I would hope not.
Ellen: All right, well, from that, um, tense sort of re- resolution, I guess, um, we are going to dance along [00:59:00] to “About Damn Time” by Lizzo, because Hen is bored out of her brain and she is cleaning-
Alice: So bored
Ellen: the house from top to bottom, and she’s trying to fold a fitted sheet, but she can’t do it. She keeps getting tangled up in it.
Alice: Oh, I used to work in a bedding store, and I still can’t fold a fitted sheet.
Bex: Really? You, you like-
Alice: Nope
Bex: … put your hands in the corners, and you, like, fold and hug and it’s-
Alice: I, oh, I know it- Look, I’m in theory, and then as soon as I try and do it I’m just like, “Nah.”
Bex: Okay.
Ellen: I usually just bundle it up and put… Like I don’t even try.
Alice: Yeah, that’s what I do, It’s easier
Bex: Look, I’m not saying that mine are, like, perfectly Martha Stewart folded, where they look like teeny-tiny little boxes, but yeah, I can fold a fitted sheet.
Ellen: There you go.
Alice: All right, Miss Adult. Good for you.
Bex: It’s gonna be, like, my special skill if I e-
Ellen: Spatial awareness points for you.
Alice: If I ever get, if I ever get back into the dating market, and, like, on my, uh, dating app profile, it’s gonna be like, “Special skills: can fold a fitted sheet.”
Bex: Uh, but yes, she loses the battle with [01:00:00] the fitted sheet. She’s about to sit down and spend mon- spend, um, money, like retail therapy, ’cause that’s, like, a great thing to do when you’re bored. Uh, the shoes looked really cute though. Um, but there is-
Ellen: They are cute. They’re very her.
Bex: They’re very Hen style. Um, but there’s a knock at the door, which she is grateful for. She said she, like, she’s never been happier to see someone show up unannounced at her house ever. Um, and it’s Buck. And, um-
Ellen: Yeah …
Bex: Buck has come to-
Ellen: He looks so great in his tight black T-shirt or polo shirt.
Bex: It’s so cute with the little collar? Yes. Um, so he’s come to the Wilson household to talk to Hen about sperm donors. And I don’t know whether it’s just because, like, Hen is the smartest person that he knows or because, you know, two lesbians with a kid, there must be sperm donation involved at some point. Um-
Ellen: Yeah, I guess so.
Bex: [01:01:00] So they sit down, and apparently the conversation calls for tequila, so they’re taking shots while they’re talking.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: I have a feeling that Buck has explained why he was talking about sperm donation, and Hen’s gone, “This is not a conversation that we can have sober. We need something.”
Alice: Yeah, pretty much.
Ellen: Yep. So Hen helps Buck to work through his reservations about the whole thing. You know, sh- you’ll be changing their lives, and you’ll be changing your own life. Um, and Buck’s like, “Yeah, for a few minutes.” And Hen’s like, “No, yuck.” What?
Bex: No, it gets worse because Hen’s talking about like-
Ellen: I know it gets, it gets worse ’cause it’s, she’s like, “Are you capable of doing this?” i- And he’s like, “Well, I think we both know I’m capable of this.”
Bex: And there’s like, there’s like-
Ellen: Stop …
Bex: hand, there’s hand gestures, and we’re like, “Ew, Buck, no, that’s not what she meant. No, she, no, she was talking about is he capable of, um-
Ellen: [01:02:00] Are you capable of being a father?
Bex: … of being a f- being a father and walking away because it’s one thing to donate sperm anonymously and never know what happens to your sperm.
It’s another thing to donate his sperm knowing that there is a kid out there, uh, with his DNA, and because it’s Connor and Kameron, they’re probably gonna keep Buck involved. He’s probably gonna get Christmas cards and updates about the kid. So can you be a donor, not a dad? And that was the perspective that Buck had not considered, and it kind of stops him in his tracks.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Uh, so we’ll leave them to their day drinking, and- … Maddie is kind of … Oh, no, this is the next, this must be the next day because Noah comes in, like, they’re in the break room, and N- he’s like, “Oh, yesterday was pretty wild. Like, how’s your day today?” And she thanks him for his help. Apparently the mom’s okay.
She’s just got broken bones, and she’s gonna be okay. [01:03:00] Um, and he’s, you know, he doesn’t, like, he, he can’t imagine what it must’ve been like for the kid. And Maddie’s like, “Yeah, me either.”
Alice: It’s so bad how I don’t remember Noah at all
Bex: Really? You don’t remember what happens to him?
Alice: Nup, not a clue.
Bex: Oh, okay.
Alice: Zero memory of this k- poor kid.
Bex: Well, then this scene has completely failed on you, ’cause I think the whole point of this scene is to start building him up as a, as a, like, a, an actual character in the show- Yeah … not just a Linda that pops in and out and has w- Yeah … pretty one-liners.
Alice: Zero memory.
Ellen: Well, s- it, so far I’m like, he’s building up to being, like, a, a nice, kind, helpful person, and I’m just wondering when he’s gonna turn out to be, like, some kind of freaky bad guy.
Bex: Oh.
Alice: Could do. We’ll find out-
Bex: Cynical …
Alice: together what the fuck happens to him ’cause-
Ellen: Okay.
Bex: But yeah, there’s, there’s no point to this scene other than to get an [01:04:00] update on Lourdes, which we get later. So really the only point of this scene is the tiny little bit of backstory for Noah, which was that her, his mother dated a bunch of losers and then married a man who is now Noah’s stepfather, and Noah likes him. So yay.
Ellen: Yay for Noah.
Alice: Yeah, thumbs up.
Bex: Yay for Noah. Um, Noah then goes on to take a 9-1-1 call about an overdose on essentially sorority row. Uh, so sh-
Ellen: This soro- this sorority house is full of people.
Bex: So the 118 are dispatched to the Zeta Theta Phi sorority house, um, to help Hoover.
Alice: Is this ’cause the frat house was mentioned so ti- so many times they needed to throw in a sorority house too?
Bex: An actual Greek house. I don’t know. Um, so yeah, they, um, they got called for a, a dog who is OD’d. [01:05:00]
Ellen: Yeah. He’s such a good boy, this dog.
Bex: He’s doing such a good job.
Ellen: That’s gen- gender neutral, a boy. Um,
Bex: Um, and funnily enough, Bobby rolls with it and doesn’t, like, take one look at the dog and go, “What the fuck are you doing?
We’re, like, here for people, not animals.” Yeah,
Ellen: we’re, we’re human paramedics, not …
Bex: Not animal paramedics. But in- But they’re like, “
Ellen: Uh, okay, I guess we can help.”
Bex: We’re going to start assessing the patient, and while Chim and Eddie are trying to, they’re, like, muddling their way through assessing respiration and heart rate and, um, signs of an OD, Bobby is snooping.
Um, and he realizes that there was a party going on ’cause he can see lots of solo cups. There’s bongs. There’s people passed out who are just not at all aware of the chaos that’s happening in the party, and wants to know what the dog got into. So when he asks [01:06:00] the party at large, “What did the dog get into?” three quarters of the party just split. Clears the room super fast.
Ellen: I love the, the writing in this scene is very clever. Like, the girl who’s so worried about the dog hands over a p- a pill bottle, and Bobby’s like, “You didn’t think a dog named Hoover would eat anything he could find?” And the girl goes, “I don’t know. Did President Hoover eat random things?”
Alice: Hoover the vacuum. So
Ellen: Hoover the vacuum. She’s like, “Oh.” But yeah, opioids
Bex: Uh, so Bobby goes, “Well, if it’s a opioid OD then perhaps Narcan would work.” And Chim’s like, “I’ve never had to give Narcan to an animal before. I don’t know what the fuck to do.” And Bobby goes, “Hen will know,” and pulls out his phone.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Chim’s like- Yeah, why will Hen- … I thought we weren’t supposed to call her.
Ellen: Why will Hen know? She’s not a vet either.
Bex: No, but she’s incredibly smart and a good paramedic.
Ellen: She’s in med school. It’s fine. [01:07:00]
Bex: Yes. Um- So they call Hen who’s like, “No, hang, hang, hang on, hang on. I’m gonna put you on speakerphone ’cause I think that this is the alcohol talking and I don’t, I’m not actually hearing what I’m meant to be hearing.”
So she puts the phone on speaker and goes, “Tell Buck what you’re coding.” And Bobby’s like, “Uh, it’s a dog. Are you two drunk?” Yes. Yes, they are. And Buck, who is in his age of absolutely says, “Absolutely.” He’s absolutely drunk at two o’clock in the afternoon because it is five o’clock somewhere
Alice: Um, it’s funny too because I’m pretty sure LA is behind the rest of America, and so yes, it, it absolutely probably is five o’clock somewhere.
Ellen: Yeah, it absolutely is five o’clock on the other side of the country
Alice: On the, yeah, just on the East Coast. Yeah.
Ellen: Uh, Hen works out in her head how much that Narcan they should give the dog.
Bex: Which is very, very, [01:08:00] um, impressive considering how much tequila she and Buck have had, that she can still, like, do the mental arithmetic to convert the Narcan dose down to animal size.
Um-
Alice: Yeah
Bex: … so Eddie draws up the Narcan-
Ellen: She’s just that good.
Bex: …administers… She is just that good. Um, Hoover gets the Narcan. His handler gives him the release signal, and he jumps up ’cause he’s all better now.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Fixed. I don’t know what that stuff is, but it, like, instantly fixes him.
Bex: Um, and then Bobby kidnaps Hoover, dognaps him. Yeah. Takes him into protective custody.
Ellen: Which is only fair considering that he just managed to overdose at a party, so it’s probably not very safe for him at a sorority house. I don’t know who the dog belonged to. I, I would have thought that-
Bex: I’m assuming somebody at the sorority house.
Ellen: Yeah, but, like, y- uni students allowed to have pets at… Like, maybe it was one of the visitors who has [01:09:00] passed out drunk and now their dog is missing.
Bex: Just, just shh, shh, shh. Like- Don’t think. Don’t think. Just, just go with it.
Ellen: Okay, I’ll try not to. Um, yeah.
Bex: For the drama. Okay. Well- For the drama, somebody has a dog that ate-
Ellen: He kidnaps the dog …
Bex: that managed, that managed to get a pill bottle open, scoop out-
Ellen: Yeah
Bex: the pills, overdosed on it, and now Bobby is taking the dog into protective custody.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah.
Bex: Um, back at Hen’s house, Buck is staring at Hen in amazement because she did math in her head while drunk.
Alice: He’s so impressed by this. He’s so impressed. Buck, who’s never done maths in his life, is like, “Whoa, you did it in your head. You didn’t even use your fingers.”
Bex: And like you’ve got-
Ellen: Didn’t even pull out your phone. Oh no, the phone was in use …
Bex: you’ve got 20 fingers right now. You could’ve counted so high. And
Hen’s like, “Yeah, you know, I’m so good, you know. Like, take that, doctor [01:10:00] professor lady who flunked me.” Um, and Buck gets right on that train. He’s like, “She’s an idiot. Um, you know, maybe you flunked a test, but your instincts,” take another shot of tequila, um- Yep … “your instincts are incredible. You would’ve made one hell of a doctor.”
And somewhere in, um, Hen’s tequila-soaked brain, the, like the wheels are starting to turn.
Ellen: Yeah, she says, “Maybe I do wanna go back to that hell hole again.”
Bex: But okay, something that it didn’t occur to me until after they called, um, Hen and she had to get Buck to verify that what she was hearing was correct.
Hen is not on the scene because Bobby has banned her from working. Why isn’t Buck working?
Alice: Yeah. It’s just Buck’s day off, okay. He’s busy being drunk. Leave him alone.
Bex: But the, like it’s, it’s Bobby, Eddie, and Chim. So why has Buck got the day off? ‘
Alice: Cause he wanted it. ‘Cause he could. ‘Cause he had a very important decision to [01:11:00] make and he was thinking.
Bex: I mean, yes, but-
Ellen: The- It was just- … decision-making pushed out all other thoughts including working
Bex: I just, I got to the sort of the middle of the scene going, “Wait, Buck should be at work. Why isn’t he at work?” And like
Ellen: the- Yeah, I’m always confused by when some of them are at work and some of them aren’t. It’s like I thought they were a team that worked together all the time.
Bex: It, until it’s like narratively more important for them not to be at work.
Ellen: That’s it. Yeah.
Bex: Yeah. Um, so then later that night, um, it’s obviously not a 24-hour shift, or maybe it’s the next day because Eddie, it’s nighttime and Eddie is at home, um, trying to sleep, but there are voices coming from the living room.
Because Christopher has snuck out in the middle of the night and is using voice chat through his gaming console to talk to his friends.
Ellen: Yeah, at the top of his voice. Like-
Bex: And [01:12:00] the c- This is so bad. Like he’s, he’s got like gaming-
Ellen: I don’t know how he thought he’d get away with this …
Bex: but the, the stupid thing is like he’s got his gaming headset on, so but the audio is coming out of the console so Eddie can hear what the other kids are saying. Rather than the audio filtering through Chris’ headphones so that Eddie could only hear what Chris was saying.
Alice: Yep. Mm. Um, I, I, I didn’t really pay any attention to this scene because Eddie was like in pajamas and looking very authoriti- autho- authoritative.
Bex: Mm-hmm.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Oh, no, like the, the, the click of the fingers and the pointing, and I’m just like-
Alice: Mm. Da- Daddy Diaz- Yep … came out today, uh, tonight.
Bex: Yep.
And he clicks his fingers and says off and I’m like, “Wait, wait, what am I turning off?” ‘Cause something’s turning.
Alice: Yeah, what, uh, I, I turned off the TV-
Bex: Turning off?
Alice: And then I don’t know what happened. Um.
Bex: Like, turning off is the [01:13:00] opposite of what is happening right now. Um.
Ellen: Hi, Ryan.
Alice: Oh, my God. Hi, Ryan. Hi, hi, Aisha. Speaking of looking good this episode, girl.
Ellen: Um. Yes, indeed. Um, Eddie’s cross with him because he was not supposed to have, play any video games for a week, and
Bex: Chris is like- In Christopher’s defense, he was not playing a game, he was using voice chat.
Ellen: Yeah, well- … he’s not supposed to be looking at a screen apparently. Um. “You never let me do anything on my own. I’m not a baby. You always treat me like a baby. And you’re acting like a jerk.” And, um, this is where Eddie gets cross with him.
Bex: And at this point, the writing veers away from being a, um, a very realistic father-son interaction to going back to reminding us that this is a fictional drama, because as soon as Eddie [01:14:00] says, “Don’t use that tone with me,” Christopher’s like, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m so sorry, Papa.”
Ellen: Yeah, he apologizes.
Bex: Immediately folds.
Ellen: No, that’s not gonna happen.
Alice: Yeah, no. Like- There should be more, um, more slamming doors and-
Ellen: Yeah, it would be stomping off and, and slamming-
Bex: There would’ve been stomping off, slamming doors, some snarky comments, some absolute s- bombastic side eye going on.
Um, but no. Apparently Christopher is willing to sit there and listen to Eddie talk and explain why he treats, he’s, um, treating Christopher the way that he’s been treating him, and promising that he’s going to try and change.
Ellen: Except that his punishment got extended by one week.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: Yes. And Chris is like, “Oh, come on.”
Bex: Which we get a, a half-hearted like, “Oh, come on,” and Eddie’s like, “No, go to bed.” And he’s like, “Yeah, okay, I’ll go to bed now.” Like-
Ellen: You were doing so well, and then it kind of all fell apart. But it’s [01:15:00] very cute.
Bex: It’s very cute. Makes me wish that my children were as agreeable as Christopher.
Ellen: Yes.
Bex: Can I get someone to come in and, like, write my children to be, like, fictional dramatic children, not like the, the, the children that I have at the moment?
Ellen: Oh, where would be the fun in that? Uh, all right, well, Maddie is gonna go and insert herself into the, um, the-
Bex: Of course she is …
Ellen: hospital room of the poor lady who is recovering from her attack. Yeah, so, and she, like, they don’t know who she is ’cause they never saw her, they just spoke on the phone, and even, like, the mom doesn’t know who she is.
But she tells Clara- like, she knows Clarabel’s name, so they’re both like, “Who are you?”
Bex: So she walks, yeah, like, she walks in and she’s like, “Hi, Clarabel,” and both of them are like, “Who the fuck are you, white lady, and why do you know my daughter’s name?”
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: And Maddie’s like, “No, no, no, no, [01:16:00] I’m Maddie. I’m the 9-1-1 operator.” which, um, Clarabel’s like, “Oh my God, you’re Maddie,” and Lourdes is like, a little, still a little bit reserved, um-
Alice: Which is quite fair …
Bex: doesn’t quite trust Maddie still. Yeah. But Maddie did not come alone. She has brought, uh, Yvette, who is an immigration lawyer, specifically who works with victims of intimate partner violence.
Um, and Yvette is going to help Lourdes to, um, to get her green card Because despite what her ex-husband said, she does not need him to be able to apply for a green card. She can self-petition under the Violence Against Women Act.
Ellen: Yeah, this is a, a nice kind of happy ending, but it made me think whether this would be very realistic in today’s, uh, America.
Bex: Oh, in today’s [01:17:00] America, absolutely not.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Yep.
Bex: Today, today’s America, ICE would’ve come into the hospital and taken her immediately.
Alice: Oh, they would’ve been loading her in the ambulance, and ICE would’ve just taken the stretcher and kept going.
Bex: Pretty much, yeah. But back in, what was this, 2022, um, America was still pretending or purporting to be a little bit kinder to its undocumented citizens. And that was the end of that scene pretty much.
Alice: Yeah. Maddie is saving people, as usual.
Ellen: Yeah, Maddie saved the day. Um, Hen is going to save her own day by going to the medical school, which we don’t know the name of. It’s just called Medical School.
Bex: It’s just Medical School.
Ellen: Yeah. It’s just Medical School. Um, and-
Alice: Like, she turned up and it just had Medical School on a banner out the front. It was just-
Bex: Yep …
Alice: like, no wonder she hasn’t studied and then failed, because, like- … I don’t think, I don’t know how reputable this place is.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: If it’s just called Medical School.[01:18:00]
Ellen: Um, this very stern lecturer who is in this room, and Hen looks kind of nervous to be going to speak to her. But she asks Dr. Simmons to give her a second chance because she has good instincts and a lot of experience in the field.
Bex: Drink.
Ellen: Yeah. Um, she wants to… She knows she could be a really good doctor, and she will put her family through another 12 months of hell, but she really hopes she doesn’t have to.
Bex: Again, she’s talking about rep- she’s talking about repeating the entire year, but as far as we know, she only repeated one subject, so…
Ellen: Yeah, she’s-
Alice: Yeah, I guess-
Ellen: … making it sound like she’s gonna have to repeat the whole year.
Bex: Yeah. When really she just has to pass neurology. So, like, are they gonna hold her back and make her do an entire second year because she failed one subject? Is neurology, like, a mandatory subject that you can’t move on unless you pass? Um-
Alice: I guess maybe she wants to be a [01:19:00] neurologist?
Bex: I don’t know
Ellen: Don’t know. Anyway, Dr. Simmons looks very put out by this whole thing, but she’s willing to give Hen a chance. So she’s gonna-
Bex: Yes, because apparently, um, she’s gonna … Hen gets extra credit, um, and she is going to do a practical exam with Dr. Simmons’ actual real-life patients.
Alice: Yeah, which, you know, is great. She failed- Yeah … but sure, give her a chance with some real-
Bex: She failed neurology but they’re gonna let her loose on real-life people anyway.
Ellen: Yeah, I mean, well, her actual job is, is real-life people, so.
Bex: But real-life people in a paramedic sense. She’s letting Hen loose on, like, neurologic- with patients with neurological issues.
Like patients that need brain surgery and things like that.
Alice: Yeah, it’s, it’s weird.
Bex: Or have possible complications of the brain. Um, and especially it’s not even, like, a practical exam where Dr. Simmons knows what the answer is and can then judge on whether Hen gets the answers right by knowing what [01:20:00] the answer is.
These patients sh- have not had a diagnosis yet or any kind of course of action. Hen has no idea and Dr. Simmons has no idea. I kind of do, um-
Ellen: It sounds risky, right?
Bex: It sounds incredibly fucking risky. On the one hand, it’s kind of cool in that maybe unintentionally the writers are showing that people can be, like, street smart and practical smart and absolutely suck at the academics and test-taking side of things.
Mm. Like, Hen’s a really good paramedic, but she can’t take a test.
Alice: Look, I don’t even think she sucks at taking tests. I think she was just, like, overwhelmed and overstretched herself.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: And therefore fucked up the test.
Ellen: But then she’s not gonna reset the t- the test. She’s gonna go and- Yeah … apparently look at real patients.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: This medical school’s looking dodgier and dodgier.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Anyway, [01:21:00] we don’t get to see that in this episode, so, um- No … go back to Athena is getting home earlier than Bobby was expecting, because her parents kicked her out and she got an earlier flight apparently.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: That’s the whole reason.
Bex: And Bobby is acting, like, a little bit shifty. He’s like, “Oh, I, I wasn’t expecting you home so soon.” And apparently there, he’s cooking something because it smells amazing, and Athena’s like, “Oh my God, you cooked me dinner.” He’s like, “Uh, no, I, I didn’t cook you dinner. Um, no, he-
Ellen: He’s cooking something amazing for Hoover.
Bex: For Hoover. Because, uh, he did not, when he dognapped the dog to take it into protective custody, what he meant was he was keeping the dog.
Yeah. Um, Athena literally backs up like she’s being attacked by rats when Hoover comes running out of the kitchen.
Ellen: Yeah. She’s like, “What is going on here?”
Bex: Like, this is [01:22:00] the woman who faced down, like, quote, unquote, “rabid Dobermans” in the first season, and yeah, is just completely thrown off by Hoover. Yeah Who is this tiny little, like, terri- like, correct me if I’m wrong, Alice, is some kind of terrier?
Alice: Looks like some sort of terrier, yeah.
Bex: Yeah. Um-
Ellen: He’s a little floofy thing.
Bex: She does get the origin of his name correct, though. It, it’s Hoover, like the vacuum cleaner, not the president.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Which Bobby takes as a sign that Hoover is absolutely meant to stay with them.
Ellen: Yeah. It’s very cute.
Bex: Yes
Ellen: Okay. So Buck has invited Connor and Kameron back over, uh, back t- to his place, uh, which is looking a little bit like a threesome.
But anyway, um, thank you guys for coming over. He’s been thinking about what he wants, where he is in his life, and, uh, and what, like, where this would [01:23:00] fit in with that, and he hasn’t figured any of that out. But that, uh, they know what they want, and he wants to help them.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Which is a, a really long-winded way of saying that he, he, yes, he will be their sperm donor.
Alice: Yeah. He’ll … It, it’s fine. Have some sperm. Why not?
Bex: He will absolutely. It’s the age of absolutely. He’s saying yes, he will absolutely be their sperm donor. So Connor and Kameron get really excited, and they hug each other.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Leaving Buck hanging on the other side of the table really awkwardly, ’cause he doesn’t even get to be a part of their celebrations. He’s literally just sperm to them.
Alice: Yeah. They’re looking at him and he’s just this wiggly thing.
Ellen: A giant sperm.
Bex: Um, and that’s where we end the episode, on Buck’s declaration that he will be their baby daddy.
Ellen: Oh, Buck.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: What have you done?
Bex: It’s, it’s not gonna go well, is it?
Ellen: I’m getting that feeling. [01:24:00] Yeah.
Bex: Yeah. And that’s, like, that’s not even, like, attempting to spoil or anything.
Alice: In so many ways.
Bex: It’s like the, the show is setting it up that this is not going to end well.
Ellen: Yeah, no, I definitely got that impression. I mean, there were some parts of this episode that were just so ridiculous, but I actually, I thought a lot of it was, was really funny and quite enjoyed it. The directions they’re going with certain things are a bit crazy, like the sperm donor thing, for instance.
Bex: Mm-hmm.
Ellen: Um, Hen deciding one, one week that she doesn’t wanna do medical school anymore, or being told by Karen that she’s not allowed to, um, and then the next week going and begging for it again
Bex: Without consulting her wife, presumably
Ellen: Well, I would hope that she’s asked Karen or talked to Karen about it, but I don’t know. Karen’s not in this episode at all, so we don’t know.
Alice: Yeah, we don’t know. So
Bex: we, we don’t know.
Ellen: I mean, Bobby is back now, so she won’t be the captain [01:25:00] anymore, so maybe she’s got a bit more bandwidth for studying.
Alice: Yeah, it’s fine. She’ll just be able to study now that Bobby’s back ’cause, you know, nothing will happen again.
Ellen: No, absolutely everything will be fine. ‘Cause that always happens in this show.
Alice: Yep. It was just that one week that derailed everything. I mean, to be fair, she didn’t study for the entire rest of the time, so-
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, she was procrastinating-
Bex: Pretty much
Ellen: … for way too long. All right. What, what, what have we l- got to look forward to next week? I have nothing else to say about this episode I’ve just realised.
Alice: Yeah, look, like, the, the episode was fine. I’m, I’m refraining from discussing a big chunk of it due to having seen season nine.
Ellen: Oh.
Bex: I, it was, I remember when we were doing the, um, the what’s up for next week, and we’re sort of reading out the promo of what happens, and I’ve gone, “Oh my God, it’s [01:26:00] this episode.” And I do remember going into it thinking that I’m gonna be rolling my eyes and being snarky and, and hating it. Um, like, it’s not good, but it was fun.
Alice: Yeah. Like, the bicycle bit was still the best.
Bex: Like, the bicycle stunt was fun.
Alice: And we got Daddy Diaz, so like…
Bex: Yep. Yep, that’s always, that’s always a plus. Um, yeah, the, the emergencies were stupid, but they were fun. Um, so it’s, it, it’s, I don’t think this episode is a contender for the best episode of the season, but it’s definitely not the worst episode of the season.
Alice: 100%, it’s absolutely not the worst episode of the season. Um-
Ellen: I feel like we’ve already gone past that one.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Yeah, we’re all, I think we’re all gonna be-
Ellen: Well, I’ve only seen four.
Bex: So next week, Athena is going to investigate when the same house is hit with two home invasion 9-1-1 calls within hours of each [01:27:00] other. Uh, Paw Patrol race to the res- sorry. The 118 race to the rescue- get that tequila out, take another shot. Um, when a DIY home renovation traps a man in the attic.
Hen asks for a second chance with her medical school professor, which, like, we already know that ’cause we literally just talked about it.
Ellen: Oh, they’re rearranging scenes again.
Bex: I’m assuming that maybe next week we’ll actually get the practical exam and they just don’t know how to put that in the promo, or yeah, perhaps they’re rearranging shit again. Who knows?
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Um, and Maddie and Chimney regret hiring a nanny after the woman completely takes over their apartment. The triggers for next week include, uh, claustrophobia, see above re, uh, man trapped in the attic, uh, a cliffhanger ending, coerced action, which I can’t remember what that is in relation to, uh, gun violence, uh, home [01:28:00] invasion/robbery, racially tone deaf casting choice, and Alice, can you reach out to Nikki for an explanation as to what that means?
Because I did a quick scan through the episode, and I’m not sure what she’s talking about there.
Alice: Hmm, interesting.
Bex: Maybe that’s on me, but I have, but I would be interested as to what exactly that’s in reference to. Um, threat of gun violence and Oh, we’re, we’re possible love interest is a trigger now?
Alice: I, I just wrote that. I’m triggered by it.
Bex: Introduction of possible love interests is a, like a massive trigger for Alice apparently.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: So we’re adding that one in.
Alice: I’m triggered by it.
Ellen: Spoilers.
Bex: Look, honestly, the triggers are spoilers in some instances.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Uh, but no, seriously, I have no idea what the racially toned-down casting choice is.
Alice: Yeah, I don’t remember all the-
Ellen: Okay. All right, I f- I feel like we’ve had a bit of a short one again, but it, [01:29:00] like, let us know what you think about this episode.
Um, everyone that … You can leave us a comment on the episode post on thatweewooshow.com or in wherever you listen to us. You can get in touch with us on social media too if you want to tell us about stuff. Thank you so much for listening this week, and we will talk to you next time about episode five, which is called “Home Invasion”. 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’re not alone. You can call or text numbers in your country for help. Just Google crisis support in your location to find out the number.
If you enjoy our podcast, you can help us out by leaving us a review on Spotify or your preferred listening app, and by sharing our social media posts. Find out more at thatweewooshow.com.[01:30:00]
[outtake]
Ellen: Are we ready to go?
Bex: Sure. Let’s, let’s do this
Alice: We’re all very enthusiastic. Uh,
Ellen: congratulations for puppies, by the way.
Alice: Thank you.
Ellen: Well, how long until they’re- they’ll be born?
Alice: Uh, end of July.
Ellen: Oh, not too far along away.
Alice: So, like, five weeks or something.
Bex: Damn. That’s fast.
Alice: Yeah, they’re only pregnant for two months.
Ellen: Lucky bastards.
Bex: Right?
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