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 6 of the sixth season of 9-1-1, titled “Tomorrow”.
Hen fears for Karen’s life when an explosion rocks her science lab on the day she brings Denny to work with her.
Content warnings for episode 6.06:
explosions, gore (dismembered arm and facial trauma), recurring character injury and near-death experience
Mentioned in this episode:
- Parkes Elvis Festival
- The Dish (2000) – Vale Sam Neill 💔
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Episode Transcript
Maddie: [00:00:00] 9-1-1. What’s your emergency?
Bex: Welcome back to That Wee Woo Show, a podcast where we watch and discuss episodes of the ABC show 9-1-1. I’m Bex.
Alice: I’m Alice.
Ellen: And I’m Ellen.
Bex: As we say every week, thank you to everyone who has been listening to our little podcast. Um, and a special thank you to those of you who have taken time out to rate us on those platforms that allow you to rate, or who have written in with comments or emails, or shared any of our social media posts and/or episodes to help us get into more people’s ears.
We do very much appreciate it. Um, this week we are also going to shout out a friend of the [00:01:00] podcast, Kiera, um, who gave us a little bit of her, uh, veterinary knowhow about how Bobby calling Hen on h- how to administer Narcan to a dog in, um, “Animal Instincts”. No. Yes, it was that episode?
Ellen: Yeah, yeah.
Bex: “Animal Instincts”.
Alice: Yep.
Bex: Was absolutely ridiculous, and I know we bang on a lot about how bad the medical stuff is in 9-1-1. Apparently the veterinary stuff is just as bad. So, uh, thank you for letting us know about that, Kiera. And for anyone who has listened to our last episode, Home Invasion, and was wondering w- about the, uh, the trigger in our trigger warning section about the, uh, racially insensitive casting choice, um, we did find out from Nikki after we finished recording that, yes, it was in relation to Noah.
[00:02:00] Um, and having, you know, a young Black man being perp walked through, uh, 9-1-1 because he was using his, uh, privilege in the dispatch center to essentially set up robberies for a gang.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: So. Thanks, Nikki.
Alice: Love you, Nikki.
Ellen: We appreciate your work.
Bex: Uh, but moving onwards and upwards, um-
Alice: I was trying to work out how to segue that.
Bex: This week we are going… yeah, I know.
Um- Before we get the, we continue on with this week’s episode, um, Alice, could you remind us about anything else that we missed from last week’s episode?
Alice: Uh, yeah. So last week on 9-1-1, Maddie’s new little dispatch friend was arrested for helping organize home invasions, and Hen passed medical school. That was, that was pretty much it.
Ellen: That was pretty much it, yeah.
Bex: That was pretty much it.
Alice: And some terrible dog caring happened.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: Oh, yes. The dog got passed [00:03:00] around.
Bex: Poor Hoover.
Ellen: And at the end of the last episode, we got the out of the blue lead onto this episode. Um, so this is episode six, which is titled “Tomorrow”, uh, and it’s the description says, “Hen panics when an explosion rocks Karen’s lab.”
That’s the entire description of this episode. And I mean, that is pretty much everything that happens in this episode, to be honest. But we do have some trigger warnings for it, um, including explosions, gore
Bex: Gore!
Ellen: Which includes a, a dismembered arm and facial trauma
Alice: There is a lot of gore this episode
Ellen: And we, there, there, it is quite a gory episode
Bex: It’s great.
Ellen: Lots of blood. It’s great.
Alice: I’d forgotten. I was like, “ugh.”
Ellen: Um, yeah, the, the facial trauma part is, I was like, “Ugh, okay. Do I need to see this part?” Um, [00:04:00] and, and one more trigger, recurring character injury and, near-death experience. Uh, so th- this episode is an interesting structure in that it’s, like, one emergency that’s entirely encapsulated into this episode, but it also includes flashbacks.
So it’s like, it kind of feels like one of those Begins episodes without actually being-
Alice: Yeah, it was sort of like Karen, like Karen Begins
Ellen: or Ka- Cap Hen, Karen and Hen Begins
Alice: kind of Yeah, Hen,
Ellen: no, it’s HenRen-
Alice: Yeah … HenRen and Denny Begin, like
Bex: I think if you were going to call it a Begins episode, it would be a HenRen Begins, because we come out of this episode knowing pretty much nothing about Karen.
Alice: True, yeah.
Ellen: That’s true. Um, she wanted to- Except that she had a dream to become an astronaut, yeah …
Alice: she wanted to go to space, yeah.
Bex: But I thought we knew that already. It’s like …
Ellen: Well, we knew that she worked in the jet propulsion lab or whatever, but we didn’t know that she wanted to, you know, actually become an astronaut. It was-
Alice: Yeah, we knew she was a rocket scientist, but we didn’t [00:05:00] know that she wanted to be an astronaut
Bex: But when you compare, like, Chimney Begins, Buck Begins, Eddie Begins, all of those kinds of storylines to this episode it’s really, we don’t get-
Alice: No, it’s HenRen Begins
Bex: … a great deal of information. It’s, it’s HenRen Begins, which kind of made me mad for a little bit. Like, justice for Karen, justice for Tracy. Let’s …
Alice: I know. I love, oh my God-
Bex: I realize-
Alice: … I love Tracy so much in this episode
Bex: Do you realize we don’t even know, we don’t even know Karen’s full name.
Ellen: We don’t?
Alice: Yeah, because, like, Denny is Denny Wilson. Hen is Hen Wilson.
Bex: She is-
Alice: Did Karen take Hen’s name?
Bex: I’m pretty sure she is Karen Wilson. I’m pretty sure that she took, she took Hen’s name. But what was her name before she got married?
Alice: Yeah, no idea. was also Wilson. That’s why she didn’t have to take Hen’s name.
Bex: Look, I, it could, like, it is not outside the realm of possibility that- because Wilson is such a, such a, a, a, like, far-reaching name that, like, “Oh my God, you’re a Wilson? [00:06:00] I’m Wilson, too. We won’t even have to change the monograms on the towels.”
Um, but, but yeah, we don’t, we know absolutely nothing about Karen. Um, and-
Alice: Yeah, we, we want more Karen. This was a lot of Karen, and we still want more Karen. Meanwhile, we just keep getting Athena’s backstory rewritten every two minutes.
Bex: I think that’s my issue, because Karen has been a character in the show since, what? Episode two, episode three. She’s been around for six years. Yeah. And we still know pretty much just about as much about her as we did about Shannon or Taylor Kelly. You would think-
Ellen: Yeah
Bex: … after six years we would know more about her other than-
Alice: You’d think
Bex: … like, everything we know about Karen we know through the lens of Hen. Yeah. We need more about Karen. Give me-
Alice: More Karen, more Karen, more Karen
Ellen: As a supporting character, like, we only find out the things that, about her that will further the story of the other people-
Bex: I know Yeah
Ellen: … in the story.
Bex: But she f- she feels like-
Alice: But we love Karen
Bex: … she’s more than a supporting character, though, because she’s been around-
Ellen: Yes, she does
Bex: for so long. [00:07:00] I feel like she should have more meat to her character than she actually does.
Ellen: No, no meat. She’s a lesbian. She doesn’t like the meat. Sorry, that was a terrible joke.
Alice: Uh, full disclosure, I care more about Karen than I do, um, Athena. I just love Tracy Toms. Um, so yeah, let’s, let’s get into the episode. Um, so we, we get a header that says, “Flashback,” like does it actually say flashback? It says 2010.
Bex: It just says 2010.
Alice: It just says 2010. Um, and it’s like got, it’s got a filter over it too, so you know it’s a flashback. Um, it’s like a lit- little bit dulled down, like the saturation’s a little bit lower. Um, and also-
Ellen: And, and B- and “Bad Romance” is playing
Alice: “Bad Romance” is playing
Ellen: And, um, I had a moment where I was like, “Surely that’s not that old.” And then I remembered that-
Bex: Yes
Ellen: … um, when we, in tw- in twen- [00:08:00] 2009, sorry, I just had to remember how we used to say that kind of date back then.
It’s not 29,
Alice: 29. 29. 20 or nine.
Ellen: Um, two, 2009, um, we did this big traveling thing, and wherever we went, like all through, like Asia and Europe and stuff, um, they would play this song. And also anoth- there was another Lady Gaga song that was new around the time, and they would always play that as well. And no, no matter where we were, we’d always hear this song. So yeah, it’s around the right time for that.
Bex: Uh, but yes, the choice of Bad Romance is, um-
Alice: Ellen’s like, “I’m so sick of Lady Gaga. I’m going to the moon,” and Lady Gaga’s still playing ’cause Karen’s there.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: No, no, no. Karen doesn’t get to go to the moon.
Ellen: No, Karen can’t go to the moon.
Bex: People like her don’t get to go to the moon.
Alice: Poor Karen. Um, yeah, so Lady Gaga’s playing, um, “Bad Romance”. It’s great. Hen is at a table alone drinking, and Karen, Karen comes in and she’s in, like business attire and a terrible wig. [00:09:00]
Ellen: The wig is so bad. Oh, yeah. Oh my God. It’s not a
Alice: good wig. It’s, it’s a terrible wig. Like, I don’t know if it’s supposed to be her real hair.
Like, you know, with Hen, we find out later that, like we’re like, “Oh, that’s interesting hair,” and then she actually rips off her wig later, and we’re like, “Okay, good. It is, yep, no, cool.”
Bex: It was me- no, I think this was meant to be that at some point Karen decided, “You know what? I’m gonna go for the dreads.”
Alice: Yeah.
Thanks,
Bex: Karen. I’m just gonna have locks or-
Alice: Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s like, “Oh-
Bex: Actually, no
Alice: … we have to change her hair to show that time has passed,” so.
Bex: Yeah.
Alice: But yes, it’s very much a wig. Um, and she, like, storms over basically to Hen, and, like, throws herself in the seat, and just goes, “You’ve got 20 minutes to convince me this was a good idea,” and then orders a drink. And Hen’s just like, “The fuck is happening here?”
Ellen: And Hen doesn’t say anything for ages.
Alice: Hen says nothing. Yeah.
Ellen: Because Karen’s just like-
Bex: She doesn’t, she [00:10:00] can’t because Karen doesn’t give her the opportunity. She just- … r- launches into a monologue about dating and romance, and the fact that, uh, she’s-
Alice: She’d rather be at work.
Ellen: It’s inconvenient.
Bex: Like, yeah, getting her rocks off is, um, preventing her from doing great things at work.
Alice: Yep. But yeah, she’s, she’s very mad that, um, that the, like the only reason that she’s there is because her lab is doing maintenance, and she can’t be there while they’re doing the maintenance.
So she’s like, “I may as well go on this blind date.” but yeah, and then she’s like, “Okay, tell me about you. What do you do? What makes you love it?” And Hen’s like, “Oh, it’s, it’s my turn now?” And Karen’s like, “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” And Hen’s like, “I thought you were just gonna be monologuing all night.”
Ellen: Oh, and I, I’m watching this going, how did these two ever, like … you know, get together? But I guess that’s the entire story of this episode, so we’ll find out ‘Cause they have quite, it’s, uh, quite an antagonistic first couple of minutes.
Alice: But the [00:11:00] thing that, like, gets them, ’cause yeah, Hen’s just like, “It sounds like you don’t have time for anybody.” um, Karen l- Karen’s like, “I don’t sound like that,” rah, rah, rah. Um, Hen goes, “You sound like you’re about to snap somebody, somebody in half with that tongue of yours.” And they both sort of like look at each other suggestively and continue drinking and talking.
Ellen: And if you like, you can snap me in half with your tongue.
Alice: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. She wants to be the somebody that is snapped in half with that- Yeah … tongue of hers. Um, do not blame her. So- Um, time passes. Uh, not quite all the way up to 2023 or wherever we’re up to in the present day, but, um, there are many drinks that are had. And Hen is asking if she wanted to be an astronaut, and Karen goes, “They don’t let people like us go to space. Um, but it’s fine ’cause I like the lab.” And I was like, “Women? Black people?”
Bex: Yeah, there’s-
Ellen: Yeah, yeah, I was confused by that too
Bex: … there’s so many different categories, like Karen-
Alice: Like, Karen, I love you-
Bex: … are you talking about?
Alice: But you’re in so [00:12:00] many niches. Like y- you-
Bex: Like is it women people, Black people-
Alice: People with wigs?
Bex: Queer people, queer women people, Black women people, queer Black women people? Like where, where do they draw the line?
Alice: Like there’s a lot of Venn diagrams in the minority category here. Um-
Ellen: Yes
Bex: The Venn diagram looks like a daisy.
Alice: Yeah, apparently it’s queer people.
Ellen: When, when Hen says Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell got repealed, and that was because queer people couldn’t openly s- be, you know, serve in the military. I’m like, “Oh, that’s the reason that she can’t go to space.”
Alice: I, I didn’t realize that-
Ellen: Because she’s queer
Alice: … that NASA was the military either, but sure, okay.
Bex: Well, no. Um- I’ve, I had a note about that later that like-
Alice: Oh good, yeah cool …
Bex: um, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell didn’t apply to NASA strictly. Um, but from what I could gather with a little bit of Google, um, a little bit of Reddit, it was one of those things where it was like trickle-down policy. So because it was in for the military, lots of people just, it kind of rolled down and out along-
Alice: Yeah, okay, fair
Bex: a lot of the other branches. Yeah. So it wasn’t explicitly Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, [00:13:00] but it was very much discouraged.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: And-
Alice: That makes, yeah …
Bex: with such a, a very specialized, such a highly sought after profession as being an astronaut, it would definitely have been something in the background with who they’re going to put into the programs.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: I think a lot of-
Bex: As a-
Ellen: people, like astronauts in general, not that there aren’t that many of them, but they’re all military people anyway, right? Like a-
Bex: Well, I thought so, but then I actually, ’cause then I thought, “Oh cool, that means that Karen was military,” but then I looked into it and I think the perception is that if you want to go to space, you either need to be a very experienced pilot or have PhDs up the wazoo.
It’s either or So you can either be like Karen and have all of the PhDs in all of the, um, very specific fields that NASA are looking for, or you can be a pilot with very specific experience and a shit ton of hours. And the only people who can [00:14:00] get the specific flying experience and shit ton of hours are Air Force personnel- Mm-hmm
Alice: military people. Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
Bex: So the pilots who are, like, going up and actually piloting the spaceship, they are ex-military. Everybody else on board is a civilian, for the most part, is the, the way my brain broke it down.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Okay.
Bex: Anybody who is working in aerospace who’s listening to our podcast or has anything to do with NASA or the military who wants to correct me, please do.
Alice: Oh my God, please.
Bex: This is like 30 seconds of Reddit and Googling-
Alice: And we’re also-
Bex: while I’m doing notes …
Alice: not in America, so, like, our-
Bex: Yeah, our-
Alice: … laws are different
Bex: … we don’t have a space program like that. No.
Alice: We have a dish.
Ellen: We do, but
Bex: it’s very- But we, we do the dishes. Like, we do the satellites and the dishes and the on the ground stuff.
Alice: Yeah, there’s a whole movie about it
Bex: We don’t send people to space.
Ellen: Yep. Yep. We’re good at communicating, apparently.
Alice: I’ve been to the town that the dish is in, I think.
Ellen: Yeah, I’ve been to Parkes.[00:15:00]
Alice: Oh, it’s just in Parkes? And, um- Then yeah, I’ve been to Parkes heaps of times. I didn’t realize it was just in Parkes.
Ellen: Yeah, it’s Parkes and it’s-
Alice: When I was a kid and went to it, I felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. It’s just fucking Parkes. Like, yeah, the-
Ellen: Yeah, it’s not-
Alice: Pretty sure Parkes- …
Ellen: that far away from anything, but-
Alice: I’m pretty sure Parkes also has an Elvis festival every year.
Ellen: Yes.
Alice: I love that-
Ellen: And the other one is in, um-
Alice: I love that I’m like, “I don’t remember what town it’s in,” but if you asked me what town the Elvis festival was in, I would be like “Oh, it’s in Parkes.” Like, what?
Ellen: I mean, it is, it is a couple hours out of Sydney. Like, it’s- … it’s fa- it’s pretty far out in the middle of nowhere, but yeah.
Alice: We used to drive to s-
Ellen: Not that far
Alice: … we used to drive to Queensland a fair bit, and so we’d go through Parkes, and the Elvis Festival was always, like, we’d either just miss it, uh … No, we’d always just miss it, but, like, it’d either be just after or just before we came through. We’d always slightly miss it, and Dad would be like, “Damn, we missed the Elvis Festival again,” and I’m pretty sure he was scheduling the trip around that so he wouldn’t go through the Elvis Festival. Um, but there were always ads for it. Like, we’d stay overnight, and they’d be [00:16:00] like, “Oh my God, don’t forget the Elvis Festival. Oh my God, the, remember the Elvis Festival.”
Ellen: Oh, wow. Well, the other, the other dish that we use for, um, the NASA stuff is near Canberra at, um, Tidbinbilla, so I’ve been there too. It’s pretty cool.
Alice: Yeah, I knew about that one, yeah.
Ellen: They’ve got a lot of spacey stuff there too, to see.
Alice: But that’s not the one that the movie’s about, so.
Ellen: No.
Alice: Who cares? Um-
Ellen: But they did talk to the, you know, the people who went on the moon voyage just recently, so that’s kinda cool.
Alice: That’s very cool Yeah, we do space, it’s just not the same
Ellen: Anyway, we’re, this is, apparently today we’re just gonna go off on a load of tangents, so-
Alice: We’re, we’re back to tangents – Yep because we, we liked this episode and so we all actually watched it, um, and don’t wanna claw our eyes out. Um- So um, yeah. So Karen wants to be an astronaut, but they don’t let people like us, we’re not sure who, who that is yet, um, go to space, but it’s fine ’cause she likes the lab. Uh, so [00:17:00] then we go to Hen saying, “Oh, I’m really glad my friend was a no-show tonight.”
And Karen’s like, “Your friend?” Turns out Hen was supposed to meet her friend there for a drink, but he didn’t show up.
Bex: Meanwhile, Karen-
Alice: And this is where Karen realizes ‘
Bex: Cause Karen had been specifically sent to this bar for a blind date, um, and either got told by the person who set up the blind date enough information to be able to identify Hen, or she simply plopped herself down in the first open table with, that had a Black woman sitting in it and hoped that that was her date.
Alice: Yep.
Bex: I’m assuming that she got told, “You’re looking for a person who looks like this,” and so she’s bee-lined into Hen. So she then realizes that her blind date has probably stood her up, which, I mean, that’s possible. It could also be that she sat down at the wrong table and her blind date gave up and left. Regardless, she assumes that she got stood up, [00:18:00] and she is going to kill Howie for setting her up on this date.
Alice: Um, oh, I should mention, so K- when Karen realizes, like, “Oh, you’re not my blind date, and you didn’t think to mention that earlier,” Hen goes, “I was having too much fun.” And Karen goes, “Me too,” and that’s where she gets mad about.
Yeah. But like, it’s so cute ’cause they’re just like- … “Yeah, we are actually vibing, but I’m still mad about this.” Um-
Bex: Yes. We’re both… We, this was never meant to have met each other, but we’re really glad that we did. Um, and then when, uh-
Ellen: Not from Chim’s point of view. It’s like, yeah, clearly.
Bex: Also point out that it’s t- to 2010, he’s still Howie at this point, so we haven’t even got to Chim yet.
Ellen: Oh no.
Bex: We kind of-
Alice: No, this is pre-Chimney
Bex: … but we’re narrowing the f- the, we’re narrowing the, the timeline in which he actually becomes Chimney. Um, we get, so Karen’s like “I’m gonna kill Howie for setting me up on this date.” And then Hen goes, “Wait, did you say Howie?” And we real- discover, everyone discovers simultaneously that Howard Han [00:19:00] is Karen’s neighbor.
Alice: Yep.
Bex: Also-
Ellen: Dun, dun, dun …
Bex: Kar- uh, Howard Han is Hen’s colleague.
Alice: Yep.
Bex: So they realize that they have both been set up.
Ellen: Yeah, so it was a blind date after all
Alice: It was a blind date
Bex: for both of them.
Ellen: But, but, but Hen didn’t actually know that.
Alice: He just didn’t want to tell Hen. Yeah, he just didn’t want to tell Hen He didn’t tell. Um, because Hen wasn’t ready to move on yet
Bex: Which we find because she immediately calls Chim to be like, “What the fuck?”
Alice: Um, yeah, so and she calls-
Ellen: And she calls him Han.
Alice: … she calls, yeah, she, she calls, um, Chim, who looks at his phone, looks at the time, and goes, “Drinks must have gone well.”
Ellen: Mm.
Alice: Um, so Chim says he did what needed to be done, uh, which was set Hen up on a date without even talking to her about it, and she was like, “Yeah, well, um…”
But [00:20:00] after Hen calls him psychopathic, he says, “You need to move on from Eva. You weren’t gonna do anything yourself, so I just gave you a little nudge.” And I love this exchange so much. I love them so much. So Hen says she doesn’t need a nudge, and the woman’s not even her type. And Chim goes, “Hen, your type is losers.”
Ellen: He’s such an asshole in this episode. I love it.
Alice: Oh, he’s such a little shit. I love young H- young, um, young Chim.
Bex: But you, but you gotta remember, we’ve been, we’ve, for the last, like, four years, we’re used to, um, like, the new improved Howard Han Season 1- Yeah, we’re used to Ch- Chimney was an asshole.
Alice: Yeah, we’re used to Chimney 2.0
Bex: He was a womanizing dick, who- Yeah
like, yeah, we-
Ellen: Yeah, that’s right
Bex: … we talk so much about, like, Buck 1.0 and Buck 2.0 and Buck 3.0.
Alice: Yeah, look at fucking Chimney.
Bex: We forgot that there was Chimney, Chimney 1.0 and then Chimney 2.0.
Alice: Who got mad at his girlfriend-
Bex: And we’re back at-
Alice: … so sh- shoved a, um, shoved a rebar through [00:21:00] his head.
Ellen: Well, he’s-
Alice: And we thank, thank that brain surgery because-
Ellen: He’s, he’s had, like, a name change and everything. He was Howard Han 1.0, and then he became Chimney 2.
Bex: Well, no, became, like, Howie, and then he became Chimney 1.0, and now we’ve got Chimney 2.0.
Alice: Yeah. Now we’ve got-
Ellen: Oh my gosh … and now,
Alice: well, now we’re up to Daddy Chim, so-
Ellen: Character development
Alice: Um.
Ellen: Okay
Alice: But yeah, so-
Ellen: O- only Maddie calls him that.
Alice: Yeah. So, um, so Chim says that Hen’s type is losers, and she needs to make a change, and just give this one a chance. Yes, he knows that she can be kind of intense, but just get a couple of tequilas in her and she’s kinda funny. And that she could be a really good rebound.
Bex: I, and Hen just like, “No. Look, she is obnoxious. She thinks she’s God’s gift to the human race.” Um, and starts ranting about how awful Karen is. And then Chim goes, “Yeah, that sounds [00:22:00] awful. So when are you seeing her again?”
Alice: And Hen just goes, “Friday,” and hangs up. Oh, I love it.
Ellen: The flashbacks in this one are actually super cute.
Alice: They’re so good.
Ellen: I love them
Alice: Um, so yeah, that’s why we go to the ti- title card
Ellen: All right, so fast-forward to the present day
Alice: Yeah
Ellen: Denny is eating breakfast and doing something on his iPad. Uh, and he, I think he’s been given-
Alice: He’s doing schoolwork
Ellen: yeah, because it’s been, it’s take your kid to work day. It seems like he’s been given some tasks to do on his, on his iPad about-
Bex: Yeah, he- he’s probably got-
Ellen: … his experience
Bex: … some questions that he needs to, um, to answer. So
Alice: he’s quizzing- Yeah, he does because he goes, “Oh, Karen, like, Mom, they wanna know how long you’ve been doing your job.” and Karen goes, “Do they want to make me feel old?”
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Um, but basically, like, Hen makes a dig on how Denny thinks that Karen’s job’s cooler than her job, um, and how many jobs could [00:23:00] beat firefighter. And Denny’s like, “Your job’s cool, cool too, Mama, I just can’t go to work with you.” Um, ’cause oh my God-
Bex: Christopher would disagree
Alice: could you imagine? I know, right? Christopher would do it.
Bex: Eddie and Christopher would very much disagree. Um, and if Denny ever found out, he would be so pissed.
Alice: Um, but yes. I’m sure Chris tells him later. Like, um. But yes, but Karen mentions that like, “Oh, like, Hen, you’re not really a firefighter anymore.” Because remember, at the end of last episode, she was supposed to resign because she passed medical school.
Bex: Well, see, the end of last episode, we didn’t re- even get told that. We just had this big, um, with the im- with the big scene where she’s-
Ellen: The goodbye scene
Bex: … farewelling everybody. And the vibe and the implication was that she was leaving the 118, but they never came out and said it 100%.
So now here we get the confirmation that, yes, she is actually supposed to be leaving the 118 because she has her resignation papers on the table ready to go until Denny almost spills orange juice on them. And [00:24:00] Karen rescues them from the, like, juice deluge and realizes that, um, Hen hasn’t signed them. They’re still just sitting there on the table.
Ellen: Yeah, so Karen tells her, well, she says that turning the papers in makes it real But Karen’s like, “You need to talk to Bobby and get this sorted out, and then we can move on with the next stage, Dr. Wilson.” so they, uh, they’re gonna be doctor and Dr. Wilson?
Bex: Pretty much. The Doctors Wilson.
Ellen: That’s so sexy. Anyway, um- Hen says she will go this morning, and, but, um, Karen and Denny have gotta get going, so off they go to the PAAL, whatever that stands for.
Bex: Which I …
Alice: I was gonna say, do we know what that stands for?
Bex: Yeah, because in the end of the last episode-
Ellen: S- something laboratory
Bex: when Karen rings, Karen rings, um, [00:25:00] 911, she actually says it in full. Oh. I just … Uh, here it is, the Polytechnic Applied Astrophysics Laboratory.
Ellen: Right. Oh, fancy. Okay.
Bex: There you go. Or the P- the PAAL.
Alice: The PAAL.
Bex: Um-
Ellen: PAAL.
Bex: The PAAL. Mm. So yes, they’re working, they’re walking towards the main entrance of the PAAL, and Denny is continuing to quiz Karen.
Um, th- his next question is, “When did you want to know you wanted to work in space exploration?” And Karen immediately knows the answer. She’s wanted to go into space ever since July 18th, 1983.
Alice: Yeah, which is when her parents woke her up at 4:00 in the morning-
Ellen: When she … It’s very specific.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: It’s very specific …
Alice: so she could ro- watch Sally Ride become the first American woman to fly in space.
Bex: Did you know that Sally Ride was queer?
Alice: Oh, there you go.
Bex: I discovered that when I was Googling Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell [00:26:00] and NASA. Um, she was married to a man at the time that she went up on this mission.
Alice: Oh, I was gonna say, yeah.
Bex: But later in li- later in life she, um, well, at the, when she died, she was, uh, married to a woman.
Alice: Good for her.
Ellen: Oh.
Bex: I just thought it was really interesting, you know, with Karen going, you know, “They don’t like people like us go up in space,” and they’re going on about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and then, you know, Sally was queer the whole time.
Alice: There you go.
Bex: And nobody knew. Not even her, apparently.
Alice: Good for …
Bex: Good for Sally.
Ellen: At the time,
Bex: no.
Alice: Um, just in, guys, space makes you gay. Uh … More at 11:00.
Ellen: Yeah. Um, but Karen’s job, it sounds like a lot of fun. It sound like maybe, um, you know, stressful fun sometimes, but they’ve got, like, these little robot things that, like, the Mars Rover type robots, and chemistry labs, and all sorts of [00:27:00] stuff.
The robot’s gonna detect the presence of extraterrestrial life. Denny’s, like, super interested in all of this stuff. Um, and they do do a bit of, um, introduction to all the characters who are gonna be involved later in the emergency.
Alice: I just love that, like, Denny’s walking around with his iPad taking photos of everything, which, like, I assume is maybe part of the school thing. But it’s like he’s at a zoo. Yeah. I was- He’s like, ooh
Bex: … he’s walking around take- yeah, I mean, they’re all in these glass, little glass rooms, and he’s taking photos of them like they’re animals in an exhibit. I’m watching him take photos going, “Is nobody worried about, like, security-
Alice: Yeah, is none of- …
Bex: at this point?”
Alice: It, like, is none of this confidential? No? Okay, cool.
Bex: He’s allowed to, like, publish these at school?
Alice: There’s even, there’s even formulas on the wall that he’s taking photos of. And, like, Karen comes over to him at one point, and I, I, like, I expected Karen to be like, “Oh, like, don’t, like, you know, maybe don’t take a…” but no, she’s just like, “Yeah, how cool is this?” It’s like, oh, okay. Cool. Nothing’s-
Ellen: This, that was a very, it was very t- uh, of the time, you had to write stuff on glass [00:28:00] walls with pen. Yeah. That was, like, the trendy thing at, I mean, we’re only talking a couple years ago now, but I just seem to remember that-
Alice: No, but no-
Ellen: a lot of people showing up
Alice: … that was, like, House days, which was, like, 2005. Like, yeah, 2005, 2006 was very m- peak writing on windows and stuff Um, I did it. I’ve had writing all over my windows, like with a whiteboard marker w- in, like, twen- 2007, 2009. Um, and it’s still there because I have moved back to my childhood home, and Mom is now in my room, and there’s still shit on the window. And I’m like, “Just rub it off.” It’s like song lyrics and shit.
Ellen: Aw.
Alice: Um, because it, the window was right next to my computer desk, and I had whiteboard markers, so it was the in thing then.
Ellen: Yeah, makes sense.
Alice: Um, but yeah, apparently they brought it back at PAAL in 2020-something
Ellen: Yeah, well if, um, if you don’t have enough whiteboard space, then I guess you [00:29:00] just start writing on the windows.
Alice: Keep going. Yeah. Yes.
Bex: Yep. Keep going pretty much. Um, so they head into Karen’s … They’re continuing to sort of walk through the lab. Um, Denny must have either been there before or they’ve had enough kind of events that he sort of is familiar with everybody, because he’s walking, um, through the lab and people are, like, waving at him as they see him walking through.
Um, so but they get to Karen’s office, or at least the, the part of the lab that she works, and we meet Zainab, um, who tells Denny that she got special permission, um, for the folks over at ADAM, and I don’t know what ADAM is, um, to go and see a simulation. And when- Um- And Denny, Denny is like, “Okay, cool. I don’t know what ADAM is either.”
And she explains that it’s an asteroid diversion mission. Which he gets really-
Alice: Which doesn’t spell Adam, but sure. Um …
Ellen: Asteroid [00:30:00] diversion-
Alice: A- it’s Adam … A-D-M. But yeah, it’s … Yeah, it’s … Like the subtitles specifically say A-D A-M, but it’s ADM, which is, like, yeah, it’s Adam. It’s fine.
Bex: Asteroid Discovery Analysis and Mapping.
Alice: Oh, that’s cool.
Bex: There you go. Um, but she’s dumbed it down for Denny. Um, he gets really excited, um, because he asteroids and moving. He’s like, “Like Armageddon?” And she’s like, “Yeah, but just don’t say that when you’re over there talking to them.”
Ellen: Yeah, I feel like there’s some background story here of, like, they probably get that all the time.
Alice: Yep.
Bex: It’s probably like when you make a doctor watch Grey’s Anatomy and how angry they get at how, like, bad the, the medicine is and how inaccurate it is. Make a bunch of, like, astrophysicists-
Alice: Or when you let a dog trainer watch, um, watch terrible dog husbandry?
Bex: Make astrophysicists watch Armageddon and just watch them lose their mind.[00:31:00]
Ellen: Anyway, she tells Denny that he can just put his stuff over there. Um, Alvin won’t mind, and Karen sounds like she’s had it up to here with Alvin already, and she hasn’t even seen him. But she’s like, “How is Alvin this morning?” And then there’s some shouting in the distance, and, um, Denny says, “What is that?”
And they both say, “Science fight.”
Alice: Yeah. Oh, God.
Bex: Which Karen has to go break up, um-
Alice: Again
Bex: … and make a big deal about the fact that, um, Denny can’t go into the lab, um, and neither can Karen’s phone.
Alice: Yeah, there’s no phones in the lab.
Bex: So they, they’re very, they very, make a very big production out of Karen taking it out of her pocket and showing them that she’s putting her phone on the desk. It’s not going into the lab with her. Um-
Ellen: And they show a sign on the door which says, “No transmitting devices”-
Bex: Yes …
Ellen: Allowed in the lab.
Bex: But Denny is [00:32:00] not going to miss out because while he can’t go into the lab, there is an intercom that connects the office space to the lab, which Zainab turns on for him, so he can hear everything that’s going on in there.
Which is not that interesting by the time they get in, by the time- No … Karen gets in there and, and asks them to, like, “What the fuck is going on?” Um, but apparently Alvin reconfigured the collection compartment on the rover that they were working on and removed some tubes. Which is apparently a big deal because they were a crucial part of the experiment that they were running, the testing that they were going to do.
Um, thank God we’ve got Denny in the lab because he becomes the audience, um, substitute.
Alice: He does.
Bex: He’s like, “Okay, what are the witness tubes? Why is this such a big deal?” And Zainab tells him and us that they are going to go into the rover to collect atmosphere at [00:33:00] collection sites wherever they send the rover, um, for contaminants that might interfere with the other tests that the rover is running.
Um, and Alvin justifies removing the tubes. He’s like, “But, but I wanna put a, a storage compartment in the rover and I, I don’t have room, so if we take those out, ’cause we don’t need them, we can put a storage component in and i- it can bring back anything that we wanna r- that we want to sh-“
Ellen: Yeah, if we find something cool, we can bring it back.
Bex: Yeah, we can bring it back. Which Victor dismisses, as he just wants to find an alien and bring it back to Earth.
Alice: Yeah, which, like, there are several movies that say that it’s a terrible idea.
Bex: Also, how big is this rover that they’re building that they can fit an entire alien into a compartment?
Ellen: Maybe it’s a really tiny alien. Anyway, Karen-
Bex: I mean, maybe. Maybe it’s-
Ellen: … defuses the situation, and they all go back to work. And Denny [00:34:00] realizes they’re coming, she’s coming back, so he, like, quickly shuts down the intercom and is like, “I wasn’t doing anything.”
Bex: Moves away as if he wasn’t listening the entire time. No. So while that is going down, we’re going back to, um, back home, where Hen is, uh, contemplating those resignation papers that she promised her wife that she was gonna go turn in. And she totally was gonna go turn them in, um, but she gets a visitor, and it’s Deirdre, who was their, um, their foster placement person.
Ellen: Yeah, we haven’t seen her for a little while.
Alice: No, we haven’t seen any foster kids in ages. Um-
Bex: Well, apparently that is because Karen removed them from the foster program Um, because Hen’s going into third year of medical school, and so they need to free up her time and her, um, her ability to concentrate. So Karen still wants to be involved in the [00:35:00] program.
She wants to, um, host outreach events, so that’s why Deidre is there, to drop off information for Karen. But she’s also let slip that the Wilsons are not going to be contenders for, um, fostering children in the near future. And Hen is completely blindsided by this. She had no idea that h- that Karen had done that, and she looks gobsmacked.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. She’s like, “Why didn’t she…” Like, she doesn’t say anything to Deidre about it, but she’s obviously like, Karen hasn’t said anything to her about this.
Bex: Um, she d- she does try to get some answers out of Deidre. She asks, um, she says like, “Just to, like, to clarify, Karen told you we weren’t fostering anymore?”
And Deidre said, “Well, she said you’re starting your third year at medical school and it’s a demanding schedule.” And Hen’s like, “Yeah, but it, it’s only for a year or two.” And Deidre’s like, “And yeah, and then you’ve got residency. Um, life as you know it is about to [00:36:00] change.” And Hen’s like, “Oh.” Which is an interesting point that we come back to later in the episode.
Alice: We do indeed.
Bex: But we gotta go back to PAAL for a little bit longer, where Alvin has gone to work on the rover, which is not that big. I don’t know how he’s gonna fit an alien in there, witness tubes or not.
Ellen: No, it’s only a little one.
Bex: Unless it’s, unless it’s like a, like microscopic sort of like a bacteria that they’re gonna classify as alien because it’s native to wherever the rover has ended up.
Ellen: I think the real rovers that are on Mars or whatever are, are quite a lot bigger than that, right? I don’t, I’m not s- entirely sure, but-
Bex: I don’t know … they-
Ellen: they’ve got like big solar panels and stuff on them, so I assume they’re a little bit bigger than that.
Bex: But it also beggars the question, like he’s, he wants to put a compartment in there so that it, it can collect samples and bring an alien back. How are they getting the rovers [00:37:00] back? ‘Cause the rovers are still on Mars, right? They’re just-
Ellen: Yeah, I don’t think they’re designed to come back.
Bex: They’re, yeah, they’re not designed to come back. They go back, they test stuff, they send the results to us, but they’re just, they’re these, they’re dead husks on Mars.
So how is-
Ellen: The Curiosity rover is apparently the size of a small SUV, roughly measuring three meters-
Bex: Holy shit
Ellen: … three meters long-
Alice: Jesus, this is not that big …
Ellen: 2.8 meters wide and 2.2 meters tall. It weighs 899 kilograms.
Bex: Two, 2.2 meters tall, that thing is taller than me. Yeah.
Alice: That’s taller than most people, Bex.
Ellen: Taller, taller than most people.
Bex: Holy sh- how did they get it there?
Ellen: Yeah, I had, I had a feeling it was the size of a car, but yeah. So you could definitely fit an alien in that.
Bex: But again, how do you get it back?
Ellen: No, well, you don’t. That’s the point. I think it’s designed to just stay there forever.
Bex: Maybe this is, like, a scale [00:38:00] model. Like, they’re testing it at this size, and once they get it figured out, then they’ll scale it up to, like, actual- Yeah, maybe … Curiosity size.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Um, we’re never gonna find that out ’cause it’s about to get blown up. Um, all of the work is, all of the work is gonna go to waste because there’s something going on with the high-pressure tank in the lab.
It’s, um, it’s shocking people. Victor comes to tell Karen that he was getting a sample, and he opened the valve, and he got shocked, um, which he’s seen-
Ellen: Yeah, that’s not good
Bex: … which is like… And then he says to her, “It’s not that, um, like I don’t know what to do or I don’t know if that’s a good thing. It was, that is outside the parameters of my experience.” he says-
Ellen: So nerdy. I love it.
Bex: So he’s gone to find his trusted adult who immediately says, “Okay, we need to stop using that tank. Shut everything down. Did you tell anybody?” And he’s like, “No. I, well, I’m telling you.”
Alice: I- you, telling you. Yeah. So it’s like I’m-
Bex: There are still pe-
Alice: I’m here to tell you.
Bex: [00:39:00] But there are people in that lab still potentially using that tank.
Ellen: Yeah, I feel like he probably should’ve told them first
Bex: he probably should’ve let them know first, which… Oh, no. So, okay. So Karen is gonna go deal with that. Um, Denny goes back into the office space ’cause he knows he’s not allowed in the lab part, um, while Karen goes on to deal with the, the tank.
And as he walks into the, um, the office-y space, Karen’s phone, which they made a big production of her leaving behind, starts to ring. And so he answers it because he can see that it’s Hen that’s calling. Um, and she’s-
Alice: Yeah, so he’s like, “Hey, Mama.”
Bex: She’s like, “Oh, you’re not my wife who I was calling to, like, tear a new one for removing us from the fostering program without telling me. Um, I’m gonna have to switch gears. Uh, hey, kid. You having fun?” Um, Denny’s like, “Yeah, it’s cool, but, uh, Mom won’t let them catch aliens.” [00:40:00] And Hen’s like, “I’m sure she has good reasons for that.” So um, and so while they’re on the phone, we cut back to Karen who’s rushing into the lab just in time to watch Hitu, um, go to take a sample from the tank.
Um, and before she can do the, she does something and something happens, and there’s a spark ’cause there’s, like, metal going into something. I don’t know. There is a massive explosion. That’s all you need to know.
Alice: Yeah, there’s a huge ex- I sort of, like, the, there was, the thing sparked when he touched it. It sparked when he touched it again. There’s a lot of oxygen, I guess, in the high pressure thing. I- And so everything goes boom
Bex: … it’s, it’s very much, uh, an episode where don’t even try to understand what’s going on- I- … just enjoy the pretty flames.
Alice: yeah, honestly, I didn’t care. Yeah, I didn’t care. No. I was just like, “Oh no, the lab’s up in flames.”
Bex: Big fire go boom. Yeah. Very pretty.
Ellen: And Karen gets thrown back, and Denny drops the ph- I mean, yeah, Denny drops the phone. [00:41:00] Hen can sort of hear what’s happening, so she’s worried about all of them.
Bex: Yes, ’cause she can hear, like, she hears the phone, she can hear the explosion, the emergency klaxons start to sound in the background, and she can’t, uh, Denny’s not talking to her anymore. Um, so she freaks out, um, and we go to commercial, ’cause of course we do.
Alice: Yeah, Hen, Hen hasn’t realized yet that they can’t kill kids on camera, so she’s just like, “Oh my God, Denny’s in trouble.” She’s still learning. He’s not. It’s fine.
Ellen: Um, uh, of course the 118 show up, and they know that this is where Karen works. Well, Eddie does. Eddie says, “Isn’t this where Karen works?” And Chim’s like, “Yep.”
Bex: I love this-
Ellen: But first, before that, before that, um-
Bex: No, and I love that bit-
Ellen: … Bobby introduces himself
Bex: … ’cause they’re like … Yeah, Bobby introduces himself there. I- they’re on campus, so Campus Fire are there. Um, the 118 are going to, um, to support the Campus Fire.
Um, all [00:42:00] good. Uh, Bobby tells them to suit up. They’re going inside. So then we get Eddie sort of looking at the lab going, “Wait, isn’t this where Karen works?” Chim’s like, “Yep, this is where she works.” Buck says, “Do you think Hen knows?” Cue the car screeching up the street behind them.
Alice: Basically drifting around the corner.
Bex: Coming to a- Tokyo drifting around the corner, coming to a screeching s- halt, and Hen just sprinting up the street towards them.
Alice: Yep, so it’s-
Bex: And Chim’s like-
Alice: “Isn’t this where Karen works?” “Yep.” “Do you think, uh, do you guys think- “Do you think Hen knows?” … do you guys think Hen K- knows?” “Yep.”
Bex: Yep.
Alice: Like, Chi- Chim is ju- The, he’s just, like, he’s been playing 2010 Chim too much and just reverts back to sassy Chim, apparently. Like, he’s not even worried about his friend. He’s just like, “Yeah.” Like, it’s, uh, I’m sure Karen’s fine. Whatever.
Ellen: Yeah, this is where Karen works.
Alice: Yeah, like, whatever. But yeah, so Hen like sprints to them, yeah, just in time for Denny to come out. Um, [00:43:00] and so Denny goes to Hen. Um, Denny’s fine, but Karen didn’t come out with them. Um, and Denny didn’t wanna leave, and it’s like, “Aw.”
Bex: Hen says it’s okay. She’s gonna go in to find Karen. And Bobby’s like, “Nuh-uh. You’re not going in there.”
Alice: Yeah. Like Hen’s like, “You stay with Zainab,” and Bobby’s like, “Yeah, you too, Hen.” like,
Bex: And Hen’s like, “Wait, but my wife is in there. Of course I’m going inside.” And Bobby’s like, “Number one, you’re not a firefighter anymore.”
Alice: Yeah, number one, you haven’t actually handed in your resignation paperwork, but you’re not a firefighter anymore apparently … then
Bex: number two, you’re too close to the situation. And I’m sitting here going, “Sir, where was that energy when your stepdaughter was caught in a fire and you just-
Ellen: Yeah, I don’t think you can-
Bex: … barreled straight inside
Ellen: … cast any stones, Bobby. You will be the first one to run in there. Ugh. But I do love- Um, but- … what he says next. It, ’cause he says, “I love you. Now let us do our jobs.” [00:44:00]
Bex: And for some reason Hen backs down and just goes, “Okay, fine. I’ll stay out here.” So they, the 118 head inside, Hen stays outside, which we find out later is for good reason because she’s got shit to do outside, but-
Alice: Yeah …
Bex: at the moment it’s, it’s, um, a little bit sad too that she’s watching her colleagues go in to try and find her wife. But it’s the perfect time for a flashback.
Ellen: Yeah. It is. They’re perfectly timed-
Bex: Apparently
Ellen: … flashbacks in this episode.
Bex: Uh, so we’re flashing back to technically date number two, I guess, um, where Karen has invited Hen over to her apartment, which is essentially Chim’s apartment just rearranged slightly ’cause all of the apartments look the same in that building.
And apparently Hen is 26 minutes late to the point where Karen thought that she was being stood up again, thought for real [00:45:00] this time. But we, Hen says that no, she’s, she’s been there. She’s been sitting in her car out the front for 26 minutes, trying to decide if she should actually come in.
Ellen: Aw, Hen.
Bex: Um, and Karen asks, is she really that terrible that it took Hen 26 minutes to decide if she wanted to come up?
Um, and Hen is like, “No, it’s not that you’re terrible, it’s that you’re serious,” and she doesn’t think she’s ready for serious. And Karen looks at her and goes, “Well, I don’t have to be serious.” And like, all but, like waggles her eyebrows and, like pulls the, the, like you could just imagine that she’s got, like glasses and her hair up in a bun, and she, like whips the glasses off and pulls the pencil out from her bun and shakes her hair out. Um.
Ellen: Yeah. And then her beautifully laid table with the candles and everything just goes by the wayside, because then they have to hurry into the bedroom and get busy. [00:46:00]
Bex: Well, okay, no. Now that you say that, why didn’t … The next thing should’ve been her, like sweeping everything off the table and, like throwing Hen down on the table,
Alice: right?
Bex: And I just realized we should have done this episode last week so that we were doing it in Pride week, in Pride month.
Ellen: Oh.
Alice: Yes.
Bex: Happy belated Pride to everybody.
Alice: Happy belated Pride, everyone.
Ellen: Yay, because we actually get some kissing, which they don’t always let people do. Like, we never got any, um, Michael and-
Alice: Yeah, Michael and David weren’t allowed to kiss
Ellen: Michael and David never touched each other.
Bex: No.
Ellen: Um.
Bex: I think that was more Rockmond than it was the show, because I’m pretty sure we’ve seen, like smooches from queer couples in this show. Um, it’s just, it’s either because your actor is, like a homophobic bastard, um, or the show-
Alice: And an anti-vaxxer
Bex: doesn’t. Um, or the show has like put your character firmly in the closet and you’re, you’re not allowed to come out and kiss people.
Ellen: Yeah. [00:47:00]
Bex: So they, they’re getting busy with it, to the point that, um, Hen stays the night, and so we cut to the next morning where Chim is getting up to leave to go for shift, to start his shift. Um, walks out into the hallway, is locking his door, turn, turns around, and there’s Hen sneaking out of Karen’s apartment.
Alice: Yep.
Bex: And he’s like, “Hen!” and she jumps ’cause sh- she didn’t expect anybody out there. She didn’t, definitely didn’t want to be caught by Chim. Um, glares at him, and before he can say anything just tells him to shut up, and then just, like marches down the hallway.
And Chim’s like- Like, “What? Where are you going? Don’t you want to carpool?”
Alice: Oh, that’s great.
Bex: Look, Chim 1.0 was an asshole, but he was funny.
Ellen: Do you think that, [00:48:00] um, Hen forgot that he lives next door? Or was she-
Bex: Probably
Ellen: … purposefully creeping out?
Bex: Or she was trying, she was try- Because he was- Yeah, she was trying to be super, super quiet so that she didn’t wake him up, or that he didn’t hear her.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: But it, it, there is a nice transition because we get Chim laughing as he follows Hen down the hallway, and he’s walking towards the camera, and then we cut to him walking towards the camera through the lab as he’s looking for Karen and other people in the lab, ’cause there are other people that they need to rescue too.
Ellen: Yeah, so Bobby tells us, like keeps up this commentary on what’s happening so that we know what they’re doing. So he tells everyone to keep an eye on your air because we’re entering an area with toxic gases, blah, blah, blah. They’re gonna have to cut through stuff. There’s fire all around them. So, um, they need, there’s like debris covering the doorway so they can’t get through into the lab, but they, they shut off the gas and everything.[00:49:00]
The first person they find is definitely already deceased. There’s like, Chim says there’s brain matter on the ground.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: So, um-
Bex: Which is accurate, but I don’t know that it’s necessarily what you wanna be saying out loud.
Alice: Um, meanwhile, Eddie is yelling, “Got a live one,” so it’s like, Jesus Christ.
Bex: Everybody left their sensitivity training at the door when they went in for this one.
Ellen: Yeah, well didn’t we have peop- didn’t we have Bobby yelling about a body bag last week or something?
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: Like the coroner or something? I’m not sure. It was- yeah.
Bex: But anyway. But was that, that was like ins- “Animal Instincts”. Yeah. Do you need a, like, “Do we need to call the coroner?” I’m like, “No, this dude’s still alive.”
Alice: Yeah. Like, “He’s still alive, mate. Calm down.”
Bex: Uh, so the live one is fine. He gets evacuated by Ortiz. Welcome to the team, Ortiz. Nice to see you. Um, Buck is [00:50:00] still putting out all the spot fires with a sort of fire extinguisher. Bobby is… They’re all, uh… The thing that with this scene is this, they’re very chill.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Like, they’re, they don’t, they don’t seem to be in any, um, hurry to get anybody. They’re just kind of wandering around. Like, Bobby knows Karen is-
Alice: Like, Karen’s in there and they’re just like, “Oh, we don’t care. I know we just had a barbecue with her- Yeah, like- … with her yesterday, but we don’t care.”
Bex: Like, Bobby’s just kind of calling, “LAFD, LAFD, anybody here?” Rather than, like I, I know that Karen is not the only person in there, but I would’ve thought that they would’ve been calling for her.
Alice: Yeah, especially when there’s literally dead people on the ground, and they’re just like, “Marco.”
Bex: “Polo.”
Alice: “Marco.”
Bex: Um, but Karen hears them. She calls for them. Um, she is somewhere around a corner. She’s not immediately, um, ac- [00:51:00] accessible to the team. Um, she has Hitu with her, um, but Hitu is missing an arm that they have to step over in order to get to Karen.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: And which Bobby very helpfully points out as they walk in and goes, “Oh, someone’s missing an arm.”
Alice: Yep. It’s like, “Great. Cool. Excellent.”
Ellen: Better pick that up so that we can give it to them on the way out. But as soon as Bobby gets to Karen, Karen just wants to know where Denny is. But Bobby tells her that Denny’s fine, he’s with Hen.
So Karen’s okay after that, I guess. But she doesn’t wanna leave. She won’t, she needs to stay with Hitu, so she won’t leave. Um, but the problem is that they say that her blood pressure’s dropping fast, but the, the, because her arm was, like, ripped off, they need to get the artery and make sure that she’s not gonna lose any more blood.
But the artery’s retracted up into the [00:52:00] shoulder. This is so disgusting. Um, Eddie’s like, “I’m gonna have to go searching for it.” And so they can’t move her until they clamp the artery, and it’s just like he’s digging around in her shoulder. It’s so gro-
Alice: Ugh. Yeah, it’s so gross. It is so gross. I looked away. I was like- Oh I can’t deal with this.
Ellen: No. He’s, like, poking around. Ugh.
Bex: It’s great.
Ellen: But anyway, Karen doesn’t wanna leave.
Alice: Um, yeah, Karen’s just like, “Oh, I’m fine,” and they’re like, “Okay,” and just don’t check her.
Bex: Yeah. And they, they, they put an O2 mask on her, and then they take her at her word when she says that she’s fine, when she’s clearly not.
I mean- She’s got a massive laceration on her forehead.
Alice: Yeah, she’s bleeding on her head.
Bex: She’s covered in blood.
Alice: Like, maybe at least check her eyes, but no, it’s fine. She’ll be all right.
Ellen: Well, her, her co- no, her coworker is losing a bunch of blood and has a missing arm.
Alice: Yeah, so they’re busy. So, like- It’s fine.
Ellen: But, like, the f- the, I thought the weird thing was here that there’s, like, what, three or four of them working on this one person. Like, sh- shouldn’t the rest of them… Like, Bobby’s just standing there yelling [00:53:00] orders at them. It’s like, should you not be looking for other people who need help?
Bex: More people?
Ellen: Like-
Bex: Or at least escorting Karen out personally, or-
Ellen: Yeah …
Bex: they end up calling Buck in to, um, to escort Karen out. Um-
Ellen: Uh, so at least Buck was doing something useful out in the, in the corridor.
Bex: Yes. Um, so Eddie and Chim are still working on Hitu. They, Eddie eventually manages to find the artery. They get a tourniquet on her, all good. Um, Buck goes with Karen. It’s all good. Outside, Hen’s mother has sent in Athena as Hen’s support person
Alice: Yeah, ’cause Angela Bassett needed her, um, contractually obligated, um, appearance today, so-
Bex: Yeah … okay, that’s yeah I know that it’s contractually obligated, but I love the way it’s like Athena rocks up and Hen’s like, “What are you doing here?” She goes like, “Your mother called me because she knew you were gonna do something stupid and I’m here to stop you from doing [00:54:00] it.”
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Like, yep, okay.
Ellen: Athena would also be the first person to run in there.
Alice: Yeah, right? That’s it.
Ellen: She did it with Bobby. She did it when Bobby was in danger.
Alice: Always.
Bex: Um, but while they’re having this conversation where He- I love Hen is just like, “Yeah, I wanted to, but your husband wouldn’t let me,” and she’s like pouting.
But it’s a good thing that Bobby didn’t let her because while they’re talking, down the block this man comes stumbling around the corner in a, uh, a white clean, um, a clean suit, like the, the head-to-toe white suits, um, with his jaw pretty much hanging off his face.
Ellen: He, he looks like a zombie.
Bex: He does. It’s amazing. I love it.
Ellen: He’s staggering along.
Bex: Um, and because-
Ellen: And he can’t speak
Bex: … Hen is … He- because Hen is outside-
Alice: Yeah, he’s just groaning and-
Bex: … the front, um, she sees him, so she can … ‘Cause, you know, there’s no other paramedics. Nobody else f- No … could possibly help him except Hen.
Ellen: Um- All of the 118 are inside [00:55:00] anyway, so they can’t help.
Bex: Uh, so she rushes over, um, and like no shit Sherlock, he’s got cranial and facial fractures. Uh, but that just means that he can’t talk, so he needs to use a notepad and pen to communicate, um, to them.
Ellen: Yeah, and he scribbles on this, on this notepad that Athena finds in like this perfectly legible handwriting, um, that there’s a coolant danger and they need to warn the people inside.
And so Athena gets on the, the radio and tells them.
Bex: A little bit later though-
Ellen: But before that- …
Bex: we get to-
Ellen: Yeah, we have to do-
Bex: Yeah, we gotta go commercial-
Ellen: Another flashback
Bex: … because we like the little, little mini cliffhangers for each commercial break. Yeah. Um, and then we’re going to do a- another flashback to another date. This one not inside the house, um, because I’m assuming they actually wanted to talk.[00:56:00]
Um, and topic of conversation for this date is previous relationships.
Alice: It’s exes, yeah.
Bex: Yes. Um-
Alice: And Karen’s telling a funny ex story, and Hen’s like, “Do I have you beat.”
Bex: It’s like, “Well, look at my c- like my crazy ex. She stole all my shoes. Isn’t that crazy?” And Hen’s like, “Yeah.”
Alice: Even her slippers.
Bex: Uh, my ex was a, a, a, a druggie, um, who I ended up being, like, handcuffed on the ground in front of my house while the cops searched it for drugs that my ex had bought.
Alice: Yep.
Bex: Yeah. And Karen’s just like, “What the fuck?”
Alice: Karen’s like, “Uh, I’m a nerd who spends all my time at a lab.” Seriously. “This is real awkward.”
Bex: This is way outside my wheelhouse. I don’t know if I’m ready to deal with someone whose exes are this intense.
Ellen: It’s outside [00:57:00] the parameters of my experience.
Bex: Very much so. But you could also see her questioning, like, what kind of person is Hen if her exes are people who are involved in drugs and, and getting houses searched for police. Um- Yeah. And you can see Hen register Karen’s thought patterns, and she’s like, “I know that this is a lot. I would completely understand if you, if you want out.”
Um, but the sex must be really good because Karen holds out her hand for Hen to take it in, like, wordlessly saying, “No, like, you jump. I’m, I’m in.”
Alice: Yeah, we’re fine.
Bex: I’m in.
Alice: I’m in and probably not dealing drugs.
Ellen: Uh, okay, so Buck is now taking Karen out of the building, but Karen hears something. He- she’s like, “Did you hear that?” and Buck didn’t, didn’t hear anything. “We already cleared this floor.” But n- then there’s an actual banging [00:58:00] sound, and Buck’s like, “Oh yeah, I heard that.” So they, um, Karen just takes the to- takes Buck’s torch and runs off. And Buck’s like, “Wait, wait, wait.”
Bex: I love that Buck’s not moving fast enough for her. Yeah. Like, in this, in this entire sequence, Buck is not moving fast enough for Karen. Like, she snatches the torch off his turnout and runs to find, um, the guy. And then, like, later on, um, there’s a radio conversation, and she just, like, rips the radio off his turnout. She’s like, “Give me that.”
Ellen: She is way more frantic than any of the 118 are.
Alice: Literally, the 118 are just like, “Do-di-do, di-do-di-di, di-do-di-do.”
Bex: Like, this scene, it’s not important. Like, this guy is of no importance. It’s just to get Karen and Buck, like, moving and establish that Karen is getting incredibly frustrated with Buck. So, uh, they, they find this guy. He, like, fell over and he’s got a booboo on his leg, um, in the explosion. He can’t get up. Buck is about to [00:59:00] pick him up and we are robbed of the experience of seeing how strong Oliver is because Athena gets on the radio.
Alice: Um- Um, also super calmly, I just wanna say, she’s like, “Oh, hey babe. What’s going on?” “How you doing? How’s the lab? The barbecue was great.” Um, oh, also, “Some guy out here is, like, warning us.” Um, but yeah, it’s just, it’s really disconnected. Like, I, I found it really disconnected. Um, it just- It was very clearly that they were filming on different days, or, like, dif- like, you know, ’cause obviously when they cut back and forth they’re not actually, like, filming it at the same time. Um-
Bex: Yes.
Alice: But it’s just, ’cause Karen’s like, “Oh my God, what did he say?” And Athena’s like, “Uh, he said coolant, danger, war…” Like, it was just the, the vibe didn’t match. It was weird.
Bex: Mm. Yeah.
Alice: But yeah, so yeah, he said, “Coolant danger. Warn [01:00:00] them,” and then it took them 12 minutes to actually bother to warn them. Um, and instead of just getting on the radio and going, “One of your workers is out. They just said, ‘Coolant danger. Warn them.’ This is what they look like,” he, like, explained and, like, she tried to get, work out who he was first, and it’s like, who cares? Just, like, he told you to warn them. Warn them.
Bex: And it’s also, like, she’s obviously broadcasting over the, uh, everyone can hear. She’s, whatever the frequency is, it’s open, because otherwise how would Karen have been able to hear the conversation and jump in?
But it was very specifically like she’s just telling Bobby.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: It’s- Like, if- Yeah … w- wouldn’t you get on the radio and go like, “This is,” like, “Athena Grant of LAPD. There is a coolant risk. You need to get out of there,” or, “You need to evacuate.” Just like, yeah, like, like, “Hey, babe. How you doing? By the way, we got this guy out here. Looks like he’s from the lab. He said something about coolant.”
Alice: Yeah. Like, it’s just, like you’re a cop. You should know how to do it, and it’s, it’s so casual, and I’m [01:01:00] like, The fuck is happening right now?
Bex: Um, thankfully, whoever is directing managed to get, like, some actual urgency and emotion out of Tracy, and she’s like, um-
Alice: Oh, yeah, Tracy’s doing a great job, um, even if everyone else is in slow mode.
Bex: She’s put two and two together super fast, and this is the part where she, like, has snatched the radio off Buck and she’s like, “Bobby, you need to go to the clean room and make sure that nobody opens the door because the… Long story short, gas inside oxygen turns room into bomb. Door is fuse. Open door, lab go boom. Bad.”
Bobby’s like, “Yeah, okay, roger that. So, um, I’m gonna go look for the bomb. Um, and make sure that nobody goes in there. Everybody else get out.”
Alice: Yeah. Meanwhile, outside, Hen is doing a blind intubation on Alvin
Ellen: Like, [01:02:00] Hen ha- is there with another paramedic, and she is the one doing-
Alice: Yeah, no, but she’s doing it on her own. Yeah
Ellen: So like why … Oh, I, I’m not gonna ask any questions.
Alice: Like, the, the paramedic even, like, hands Athena a pair of gloves. Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah,
Bex: so number one, Hen should not be doing that because she’s not at work at the moment and the liability would be through the roof if something happened, so the other paramedic should be doing it.
Then number two, if she needed assistance in doing the intubation, she should be calling on, like, the actual paramedic next to her to assist, not just-
Ellen: Not Athena
Bex: … use him as a nurse to hand gloves to Athena, who hasn’t- To A- yeah. … a fucking clue what she’s doing.
Alice: Literally. Like, what … It’s so weird.
Ellen: Um, Athena does a- an excellent job during this of just looking absolutely disgusted at everything that’s happening. Like, she- Like, the guy stumbles over to them looking like a zombie and with half his face missing, and she’s like, “Oh my God.” Like, “What? Don’t come near me.”
Bex: She’s a police officer. She doesn’t do blood and gore.
Ellen: I know. Well, I’m sure [01:03:00] they see their f- their fair share. But yes, she just, she looks like she doesn’t wanna be there. But she’s gonna help, dammit.
Bex: Athena Grant in a zombie apocalypse would be hilarious, ’cause she’d just be like, “Ugh,” bang, bang, bang, double tap.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Absolutely disgusted with, with what is going on around her.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Yeah, Tim, if you’re thinking of a new, um, scenario for Season 10-
Ellen: Oh, no. …
Bex: zombies? Put Athena in a zombie apocalypse for a couple of episodes. It’ll be great. I will come back and watch the show if you, if it’s, it’s Athena versus zombies, I promise.
Ellen: Oh, don’t give him any ideas.
Bex: Look, Tim is active in fan spaces and is just ripping people off left, right, and center. The amount of storylines that have appeared in fanfic before they appear on the show is nutso.
Ellen: Fantastic. So yeah, I mean, zombie apocalypse is not outside the realm of possibility then.
Bex: I think they [01:04:00] almost got there with, um, Lonestar, a natural disaster that they were go- they needed to nuke everybody ’cause there was, like-
Alice: oh, it was-
Bex: There was a storyline
Alice: Yeah. I th-
Bex: ‘Cause I remember everyone was freaking out because, like, Eddie and Christopher being from Texas, and like, “Oh my God, are they gonna go back to Texas and they gonna get caught in this zombie apocalypse?”
Alice: No, it was-
Bex: Was it a nuclear fallout or something?
Alice: There was a, I think it was, like, a truck crashed or something, or mercury poi- poisoning apparently it was
Bex: Okay …
Ellen: mercury poisoning.
Alice: Apparently.
Bex: Anyway, I was just saying that, um, if Tim wanted, if Tim put Athena in the middle of a zombie apocalypse for season 10, I would come back and watch season 10. Just to watch Athena Grant absolutely lose her shit with how much she didn’t care about zombies.
Alice: I s- I’m sure there was something in the last season as well. So there was a meteor that was coming down and people were just like- Mm … [01:05:00] “Oh, like, is it gonna wipe out all of Texas?” It w- I don’t know.
Bex: Yes, that’s also sounding familiar. Oh. Yeah.
Alice: Yeah,
Bex: but the thing with the , with the, um, the intubation scene is, like, the music and the editing, you would think Hen was trying to diffuse a bomb. ‘Cause they try to make that scene as intense as possible for-
Ellen: They do make it very dramatic. Yeah …
Bex: nothing. Like, it’s very dramatic and then nothing happens. Like, she manages to, to get the guy intubated. All good. Um-
Ellen: Yeah, we need to show that she’s just a really fucking good paramedic. That’s the whole point of it, right?
Bex: I guess. But-
Ellen: That she doesn’t wanna give up doing it ’cause she’d feel left out.
Bex: I don’t know. So while, while Hen is doing this, um, Bobby is trying to find the room bomb, which Captain Yim is about to open, ’cause he’s been working, uh, his way through the building clearing it, [01:06:00] trying to make sure that everybody is out there.
But not… I’m guessing that they are not on the same frequency as the 118, otherwise he would’ve heard Athena’s-
Alice: Which seems kind of stupid. Like, surely everyone should be on the same, but sure. Okay, whatever
Bex: You would think that there should be a shared frequency. You are correct. Um-
Ellen: No, Athena was only broadcasting to the 118 somehow.
Bex: But then shouldn’t Bobby-
Ellen: And maybe Captain Yim just wasn’t paying attention
Bex: Or maybe Bobby should then have, like, gone onto the open frequency, which the, the, um, campus firefighters were on, and, like, be advised there’s a room bomb. Like-
Ellen: That would’ve been a good idea
Bex: … don’t go near the clean room.
Alice: Yeah. But sure, okay
Bex: It, it wouldn’t have been as dramatic as this, because Captain Yim goes to open the door to the clean lab. Um, and Bobby tackles him away from the door at the last second, but enough oxygen gets in to make the whole thing explode.
Ellen: Yeah
Bex: And that’s it. End scene.
Alice: Yep. Kaboom.
Bex: Kaboom.
Ellen: And he was [01:07:00] like, “How did you know that was gonna happen?” and it’s because he had inside information.
Alice: Yep.
Bex: Which you could have turned into outside information.
Alice: Yeah, should’ve shared with the class, Bobby, but sure. Okay. Whatever.
Ellen: It’s all right, he got there in the nick of time.
Bex: I mean, he’s giving Jonah shit for having a hero complex, and then pulls stuff like this.
Ellen: Yeah, giving Hen shit not being able to run into the burning building, and then he, you know. Anyway. Yeah, bullshit. Um, meanwhile, Hen is back with Denny and Zainab, and not paramedic-ing anymore. And, um, Karen comes out, and she’s okay. She runs straight for them, and she’s okay apparently. Um, but then-
Bex: Adre- the adrenaline is still covering her injuries at this point, yes.
Ellen: Yes. She’s hugging Denny. And but then we get a flashback again, um, to Karen finding out about Denny in the first place. [01:08:00] And up until this point, I’d completely forgotten that Denny was, like, not theirs in the first place.
Alice: Yeah, like-
Ellen: Then I was like, “Oh, yeah, that’s right.”
Alice: ‘Cause Hannah completely abandoned him once she had to do a thing? Yeah
Ellen: What?
Alice: Like, Denny was there, but Hen, like, instead of being with Denny, Hen just, like, fucked off to do an intubation.
Ellen: Oh, yeah. ‘Cause… No, but Denny was with Zainab.
Alice: Like, it’s like, shouldn’t you be comforting… Yeah, but shouldn’t you be comforting your son while his mother is in-
Ellen: Yes, yes
Alice: … at, like, burning building?
Ellen: I didn’t, I didn’t think about that, actually. She was too busy being, playing paramedic, even though she wasn’t really supposed to be.
Bex: Look, in my head, Denny was in the, was at one of the back of, was at the back of the ambulance getting checked out. So he was busy at that stage and, but yet maybe she should’ve been there offering some sort of moral support and some comfort while he’s getting examined and assessed, but-
Ellen: Mm. She was too busy saving someone else’s life
Alice: For the drama, she had to- Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. But no, I [01:09:00] mean, in the, in the flashback, I’d forgotten that it was Eva’s baby that Hen had taken.
Bex: Yes, and Karen is not happy with the idea.
Alice: I don’t blame her. Um, why would you want your girlfriend’s ex’s baby, you know what I mean?
Ellen: Yeah, I mean, it’s a very- It’s- … kind thing that Hen’s doing, but yeah.
Alice: Absolutely. Um- Yeah, but like I can’t, I can’t fault Karen for-
Ellen: Yeah, I can’t imagine
Bex: And it’s, it’s a good-
Ellen: … being in that situation
Bex: … it’s, um, it’s good kind of character consistency because when we meet everybody in season one, Karen is very anti-Eva from the very start.
Um, as sort of as soon as we learn that there is an Eva, Karen is immediately offside with her. Um, and- Yeah … we discover, like, she’s never liked Eva. And like, right, ’cause at this point, Hen’s going, “Oh, you know, Eva called me. She wants me to take her kid,” and Karen’s going, [01:10:00] “Wow, that must’ve been really hard for you to say no to her.”
Alice: And then it’s awkward.
Bex: “You did say no, right?” Yeah. Like, someone called you from the prison. You chose to accept that call. Why did you… Like, why? Why? Explain to me what was going through your head. And Hen’s, like, trying to say, like, “She doesn’t have anybody. You know, this baby needs a home.” And Karen’s like, “Yeah, but not this home.
This is our home.” ‘Cause-
Alice: Yeah, like, ’cause the, ’cause yeah, Eva’s in jail. Um, and so, like, the baby’s gonna end up in fos- like in the system, and Hen’s like, “Well- maybe not.”
Ellen: Doesn’t have to be
Bex: Can, can I just point out that, like, this, all of these flashbacks have happened in 2010? So they’ve gone from the meet cute in the bar to buying a house together-
Alice: Within 12 months
Bex: … within a year. Yeah. I mean-
Alice: Look- To be fair-
Bex: They are lesbians, but
Alice: They are lesbians. Um, they, they move at the speed of Scott [01:11:00] Hunter. Uh-
Bex: But, uh, no, but Scott didn’t buy Kip an apartment. He just, like, paid for college. Um-
Alice: No, he moved him in with him, though.
Bex: Yeah, but it was just his apartment. He just moved him in. Like, these two, I don’t know where Hen was living, and Karen was living with, um, in the apartment complex with Chim, and now they’ve bought a house together.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Um-
Alice: Yeah. Lesbians.
Bex: But Hen now wants to move house.
Ellen: Yeah, I feel like maybe they should have moved forward a year or something, but no.
Bex: Um, but no, and now, like, Hen wants to move her ex-girlfriend’s, um, kid in as well.
Yeah. And she thinks that Karen is just jealous of Eva. Um, and Karen’s like, “No, this is not jealousy. This is me being the spine that you refuse to have. You’ve always said that you wish that you could have said no to Eva. Well, I am gonna say no on your behalf.”
Ellen: Mm.
Bex: And when Hen couldn’t say no, [01:12:00] Karen left, because we then cut to her telling Chim what happened. Um, she and Chim are sitting on top of the engine truck, which is parked at the beach, while they sit on, uh, eat their lunch.
Alice: Did they steal the engine truck?
Bex: Gerard would have their guts for garters if he knew what they were sitting on top of the engine truck eating.
Ellen: Maybe they’re on their way back from a job or something, and they just decided to stop at the beach.
Bex: I t- uh, the optics of, like, the two of them sitting at the beach on top of the truck with burgers and milkshakes, it, it’s not good.
Ellen: I kinda love it. Yeah. But yeah, you’re right. I kinda do.
Bex: I love it, but if I was, like, driving around and I saw firefighters, you know, I’m paying for with my taxpayer dollars, and they’re, like, hanging out at the beach eating-
Alice: They’re allowed a lunch break.
Bex: You’re allowed a lunch break, but you don’t take the truck down to the beach and sit on top of [01:13:00] it and eat your lunch there.
Alice: Maybe they’re already at the beach
Bex: Um, so yeah, they’re having a gossip session on top of the truck on their lunch break. And Hen is complaining that, you know, she’s now gonna need to hire a lawyer to break up with Karen because they own a house together now.
Alice: ‘Cause they own a house together, yeah.
Bex: Mm. Um, but she does explain to Chim why she was fighting so hard for Denny, um, and why she can’t give up on Eva because, um, in her words, “Eva’s drug use did not come from a recreational place. The wounds that Eva was trying to block out were old and deep. I couldn’t heal her and I couldn’t save her,” but she can save Denny.
Alice: Yep. ‘Cause she feels like someone in this s- story should get a happy ending. And I’m like, “Eh, not really your responsibility, but sure.” She’s, you know, she is a paramedic. She has a bit of a [01:14:00] savior con- complex. Uh, we’re not surprised.
Ellen: Okay, so flash back to the immediate moment that we left.
Bex: So we’re back to the present, and we’re thinking, “Okay, cool, this is, like, where we get our happy ending,” ’cause, you know, we just talked about everyone having a happy ending. Denny is fine. He grew up well. Um-
Alice: He’s a good kid …
Bex: um, he, yeah, he’s great.
Alice: He has an iPad.
Bex: He goes to a private school- He goes to s- … that allows him to go on excursions to, um, the astrophysics lab. Um-
Alice: Yep …
Bex: except we’re not done with the episode yet, because now that everybody is out of danger, Yim is fine, Bobby is fine, everybody is fine, the adrenaline is starting to wear off, Karen’s injuries are becoming, making themselves more apparent, and she collapses.
Yep. And finally, someone does an assessment on her and discovers a massive piece of shrapnel sticking out of her abdomen.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: But-
Alice: A lot of blood
Bex: … they have to lift her shirt-
Ellen: No one noticed [01:15:00] that before?
Bex: Do you notice they have to lift her shirt to find it, so it didn’t go through her shirt. It went, like, under her shirt-
Alice: Yeah, no, th- there was no blood through her shirt
Bex: into her belly.
Ellen: Oh. Yeah, no. Right.
Alice: Oh, yeah. It’s, yeah, okay.
Ellen: Yeah, I l- I love it when that- I, yeah … magical shrapnel just goes up your shirt.
Alice: Yeah, good. Excellent.
Bex: Cause I’m pretty sure Buck would’ve noticed, or everybody would’ve noticed, if she’s walking around with, like, a massive blood stain and a piece of shrapnel sticking out of her side. But no, she’s been walking around with this shrapnel under her shirt the entire time. Yeah.
Alice: Yeah. Thank God it stopped the bleeding, and also teleported through her shirt.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: What a relief.
Ellen: Maybe she was… No, I don’t even, I’m not gonna explain it. Um, so.
Bex: She walked into the clean lab and she’s starting to, like, undress as Hitu- I didn’t remember that in that scene.
Ellen: No. And then she-
Alice: No, that was a different scene, her undressing
Ellen: put her shirt back on
Alice: … I’m pretty sure. That was the- Yeah. That was the flashback.
Ellen: That was [01:16:00] beforehand.
Bex: Yeah. The shrapnel flew through space and time to, like, embed in Karen and then transport her back? Anyway. They found the shrapnel now. It’s all good, except now Karen’s coding. Um-
Alice: Yeah, Karen’s dying. It’s a bit awkward
Bex: So we go, we go to commercial on the discovery of the shrapnel under Karen’s shirt in her abdomen, and when we come back from commercial, she’s in the back of an ambulance with, um, Chimney, with Hen performing CPR.
And instead of having one of the other paramedics or a, you know, Eddie helping out, Bobby’s in the back with- Yeah … the back, the ambu bag.
Ellen: Yeah, where is everyone else?
Alice: Maybe Eddie’s driving.
Ellen: Are they s- Oh, maybe. But are they still inside-
Bex: Okay. No, but-
Ellen: the building?
Bex: He’s a pa- he’s a freaking paramedic. Why would you put the paramedic in the driver’s seat and have Bobby in the back?
Alice: Yeah, why is Bobby defibbing?
Ellen: Bobby’s usually the one who drives, isn’t he?
Bex: And Bobby’s runn- Bobby’s running the defib machine. What the fuck?
Alice: Yeah. Bobby never drives. Are you kidding? He just sits in the [01:17:00] captain’s, captain’s chair and judges them-
Bex: He’s a passenger princess
Alice: … just for making out with each other
Bex: He doesn’t drive
Alice: but yeah, I don’t know why Bobby’s doing the defib thing. Um, maybe just ’cause he wanted to push a button. Um-
Bex: I’m going to assume it’s something to do with, like, shooting schedules and, like, Ryan wasn’t on set that day or something. I
Alice: don’t know.
Bex: It just, it’s just really weird. Like, why is Bobby in the back?
Alice: Um, but yeah, so while they’re trying to stop Hen from being dead, it, we go back in time-
Ellen: Karen
Alice: … um, to again, the, the grayer tinged, less saturated 2010.
Bex: No, but this one’s amazing because, like, Karen is actively coding, and when it flashes back, um, Chim, like, she’s on the phone to Chim and Chim’s like, “Karen, are you there?”
And the, she’s sitting in an airport, and everything is very white, and everything is very bright, and everything is very sterile looking.
Alice: Yeah, I wonder where she’s going. Like, Bali, Hawaii? So, ’cause to get away from Hen?
Bex: I don’t know. But [01:18:00] it gave me-
Ellen: No, she’s going back no, they, it does say where she’s going on the thing, but I can’t remember ‘ cause they say this is the last chance to board the flight, but she doesn’t
Bex: Yeah, the, the p- the, the point that I was gonna make was that it looks
I’m, I apologize for bringing up Harry Potter in, in like the year of 2026, but when Harry dies and he goes to like-
Alice: During Pride Month?
Bex: It’s not Pride Month anymore Almost … it’s Disability Month. Keep up
Alice: Almost. Um- It’s Pride Disability Month.
Ellen: Um- It’s Pride Part Two. Come on …
Bex: but like he, he dies and he goes to that like liminal-
Alice: Two Pride, Two Furious? Yes. I get, like yes. Yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah. Yes, the liminal. Yes, I agree. Yeah. The train station
Bex: The liminal space where he’s talking- The train station … the train station. It’s all like very white and very bright. That gave me, like it felt like those vibes, and for like, for just a second I’m wondering are they implying that like Karen has actually died and this is like her liminal space before she goes to heaven?
Ellen: Yeah, she’s gonna go, she’s gonna fly into the light.
Bex: Yes, exactly. She’s gonna [01:19:00] fly into the light on an airplane. Um, but in this instance, Karen is not the one that’s dead. Um, Hen is dead.
Alice: Yeah, apparently Hen is dead.
Bex: Chim is calling. Chim is calling to tell Karen that Hen is dead.
Alice: Literally that’s what he’s calling. But like- So Karen answers and goes, “What do you want?” And Chim goes, “Oh, Karen, I don’t know how to say this.” Karen’s like, “What?” And Chim goes, “Karen, Hen’s dead.” And Karen’s like, “What, what are, what are you talking about?” And Chim’s like, “Okay, okay, she’s not dead. Um, she-
Bex: Like, but she folded.
Ellen: Like she’s point- Point two of a second
Alice: She’s real sore. Yeah.
Ellen: What a horrible thing to do to someone.
Alice: But she did have a pretty bad near-miss accident last night. Um, and Karen’s, you know, understandably pissed. She’s like, “You can’t just say stuff like that.” And Chim’s like, “Yeah- Chim’s launching- … but like it was bad, and I thought she was dead, so I’m passing it on to you.”
Bex: Yeah, just like, “I thought it w- I thought Hen [01:20:00] was dead. It scared the crap out of me.” And Karen’s like, “What? You decided to pay that experience forward?” And Chim’s like, “Yes.” Yeah. “That is exactly what I decided to do.” Yep. Um-
Ellen: 100%. Oh, God. So I can’t, I just, I couldn’t decide also-
Alice: I was sad, so you can also be sad
Ellen: … if this is Karen’s like subconscious making Chim a shit, or if like this was an actual flashback to something that really happened.
Bex: I’m pretty sure that this is something that actually happened. He, he tells her that he wants her to think about, um, how she felt in that moment when he told her that Hen was dead before she gets on the plane.
Alice: Yep.
Bex: Um-
Ellen: God …
Bex: and then we hear her flight getting called. I could not be bothered listening to the, the person over the tannoy. I don’t know where she’s going. Um, but she apparently doesn’t get on the plane.
Ellen: No, ’cause she goes back
Bex: Because she goes back home, um, where Hen is in a full leg [01:21:00] cast and an arm sling, sitting in one of those-
Alice: Yeah, so like she was actually hurt
Bex: Oh, I don’t think Chim was making that part up. He was just making up-
Alice: No, no, no
Bex: … the part that she died.
Alice: Yeah, I’m just like, I, yeah, I’m, I’m, um, defending Chim. Like she, she was actually injured. It’s not like Karen turned up and H- Hen was totally fine going, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Bex: I think that would’ve been funnier.
Ellen: She’s not happy to see Karen particularly.
Alice: No, ’cause-
Bex: Oh, no
Alice: … Karen doesn’t live there anymore. Hen actually says that she’s gonna kill Howie as soon as she can get back on her feet.
Ellen: Karen does apologize and say she made a mistake. So yeah, she came back.
Bex: She, uh, she tells, um, she tells Hen that when she thought that Hen was dead, it scared her that she had, um, she’d lost Hen forever, and she didn’t, and she didn’t like the idea of Hen being gone and, and being unable to fix what was happening between them.[01:22:00]
And all of this conversation, we’re cutting back and forth between 2010 and the present, where they’re, they’ve lost Karen’s pulse, but they’re still shocking her. So she’s constantly getting shocked over and over and over again while she and Hen are having this conversation in the past. Um, and Hen is still, um, in the past, is still very salty, and she’s like, “It’s, it’s too late. Like, you walked out, you can’t walk back in.”
And Karen tells her, “It’s not. As long as we are both here on this earth,” which is why she can never go to space, um- As long as we have As long as we have tomorrow, it is not too late. And at that moment, they get normal rhythm back.
Alice: Oh my God, maybe Karen was going on a flight to go to NASA and be an astronaut.
Ellen: Oh, I hope not. Okay. Was she going to like-
Bex: Don’t say that. I’ll …
Ellen: No. I have to, I have to go and look now.
Alice: She- Like after-
Ellen: Oh …
Alice: [01:23:00] after watching Season 9, like, oh, this, the whole thing with like Karen being like, “Oh, they don’t let people like that go to space,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was getting real sad.
Ellen: I hope that’s not the truth, but yeah. She gave up her dream again. But then, yeah, they get the normal rhythm and Karen actually opens her eyes, so she’s fine now apparently. But they do, when they finally get to the hospital, they do rush her off, so.
Bex: Yeah, once again that, that thing that never happens where the entire trauma team like races out into the parking lot to meet the ambulance and whisk her, um, whisk Karen into, um, surgery Uh, because yes, she does need surgery.
Um, she needed to have a splenectomy, um, to remove her spleen that must’ve been nicked when the-
Alice: Yeah, apparently her spleen was nicked and they c- can they not do surgery on a spleen if it was just nicked? Like, if it got really badly damaged, I get it. But just a nick, like she’ll… Really? That’s, [01:24:00] that’s enough to remove your spleen?
Oh, it bl- burst once she got outside. Okay, whatever. Um- But anyway, Buck’s like, “Oh, you can live without a spleen, right?” It’s like, no, we’re, we’re saying that the surgery was a success, but, like, she’s gonna die without a spleen. Um, and they’re like, “No, she’s gonna be fine.”
Bex: Well, I guess but when they do things they’re like the… She like, she might ha- you know, when they remove an organ and you have to, like, she has to have a machine to replace her spleen, um, live with that. But no, you literally can live without a spleen.
Alice: Yeah, sh- she’s gonna be fine. She’ll be fine. It’s fine.
Bex: Um, apparently she can go home in a couple of days, which is great. Um, everybody’s in the waiting room. They’re all very relieved to hear this. Um, Hen is not in the waiting room. Hen is sitting by Karen’s bedside waiting for her to wake up, which she does. And then immediately-
Ellen: I… Sorry, I’ve got bad news. Um, I just went back and looked at the episode and she is, the flight is going to Houston.
Alice: No.
Ellen: Oh, [01:25:00] so she gave up. She gave it up again.
Alice: She really did give it up. Oh no
Ellen: Oh, that’s heartbreaking. Okay. Sorry to interrupt.
Bex: Breaking news to break our hearts even more
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.
Bex: Justice for Karen and her dreams of going to space.
Ellen: Mm. Okay, where were we?
Bex: Oh. Um, Karen was going through the list of all of her people at the lab to find out if they were okay.
Ellen: Oh, she, she… This scene, she’s such a great actress. She really does a great job, like, you know, looking frantic as she remembers each person, and then she’s, yeah.
Bex: Yep. Um, everyone’s fine. The, um, Alvin and Hitu are okay. Hitu is- Like, as okay as she can be considering she’s missing an arm. Um, Zainab was fine. She’s with Denny. Um, [01:26:00] like Hen’s reeling off all of these names, um, and Karen remembers Victor. And they’re like, “Hmm, no.”
Alice: Oh yeah, he’s not fine.
Bex: Victor didn’t make it.
Alice: Everyone else is good.
Bex: He had, like he was brains all over the ground. He’s definitely not fine. Yeah.
Ellen: Mm.
Bex: Um, and then we get back to Denny, and that we’ve just, we’ve established that Denny is physically fine, but Karen is also worried how mentally and emotionally he is. Like, what did he see? Is he now gonna be scarred for life?
Ellen: Mm.
Bex: Um, but he is fine. He’s sleeping over at Toni’s. Um, if he did see anything, he seems to be okay with it. They can get him into therapy later. It’s fine. Um-
Alice: They’ve got good health insurance. They’re all good.
Bex: Yeah. Maybe he can go see the same therapist that Christopher’s going to.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Um, but he’s gone to sleep at Toni’s because Hen is staying in the hospital with Karen. And Karen’s like, “No, you’re gonna [01:27:00] go home.” Hen’s like, “Mm, no, I’m staying here.” And she’s like, “No, you’re gonna go home because Denny comes first.”
Ellen: Yeah, and I couldn’t decide if this was Karen being a bit salty about Denny coming first, from the flashback, or future Karen, who now loves Denny just as much as her, a child of her own, so she wants Hen to go home to Denny.
Bex: I think it’s the, the future Karen that we haven’t met in the flashbacks yet who has, the, the one that gave up her dreams of going to space for Denny and Hen.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: So now she need, everything she does is for Denny and Hen, including sending her wife home to be with her son.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Um, so Hen does, ’cause apparently she’s very biddable in this episode. Every, everyone tells her what to do, and she does it. Um- Yeah … so she goes home. Um, I’m guessing it’s the same night, but she must have gone, like, to get Denny and brought him home, [01:28:00] sent him to bed. He can’t sleep, so he’s gotten up. He wants hot chocolate. Um, and Hen is sitting at the kitchen table, uh, with her resignation papers, which she has not handed in, and she still has not signed.
Ellen: Think she’s having second thoughts again.
Bex: Uh, uh, they’re like third or fourth thoughts at this point.
Ellen: Yep.
Bex: Um, so she gets up to help Denny make hot chocolate, and as she does, she kind of catches this giant collage that’s on a wall, uh, in one of the- I think it’s, like, in the corridor or something. It’s on the other side of the room.
Um, but she goes over and she’s looking at it, and it’s photos of the 118, photos of her and Karen together. There’s pictures that Denny has drawn, and there’s a photo of the three of them together.
Alice: Yeah, it’s a photo collage that, like, I’m pretty sure they just made yesterday because-
Bex: We’ve never seen it before-
Alice: I don’t remember seeing it
Bex: and we’ll never see it again.
Alice: Yeah. No,
Ellen: it’s really cute though.
Alice: It is cute.
Bex: Oh, it’s very cute. It’s just very pointed. [01:29:00] Um, and after staring at the, uh, photo collage for a little bit, when Denny calls for Hen to come help, she goes back into the kitchen, and on her way she throws the resignation papers in the rubbish bin.
Ellen: Yay. She’s still a paramedic. But she’s gotta go back and beg Bobby back for her job now. Like, hopefully it’ll go better-
Bex: Yes
Ellen: … than when Eddie tried to do that.
Alice: Right?
Bex: Oh no, we missed an opportunity for Hen to end up at dispatch.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, I think you need to go away for a little while to get your head in shape before you come back to work. No.
Bex: And then cue another emergency happening at dispatch, which then convinces Hen that yes, she actually does wanna be a paramedic.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Sue would be ropeable if another dispatch burn down.
Alice: Oh my God, right? They just got the shiny new one and it’s like, “Nope.” [01:30:00]
Bex: Nope. Uh, no. So we’re going to flash back to 2010 t- uh, 2010, um, when-
Ellen: We’re still in 2010
Bex: … baby Denny. We’re still in 2010.
Alice: Yeah, it’s December 2010. Yep. So it’s been, like, months. But not more than a year. Like, oh my God. Anyway. Yeah.
Bex: Um, Denny has been born and has been delivered, and is sitting on their coffee table in his capsule- This is, this is so cute though … as the two of them stare
Ellen: at
Bex: him like he is some weird alien creature- It’s very cute … that they have no idea what to do with.
Ellen: Yep. She’s like-
Bex: They’re like, “Do we-“
Ellen: “Oh, should we take him out of the carrier?”
Bex: “Do we take him off the coffee table?”
Alice: Like- Yeah. Hmm. Uh, “Should we call your mom?” And Karen’s like, “God no, she’ll come and, um, stay until he leaves for college.”
Bex: Like, is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Ellen: Sounds like she doesn’t want it.
Alice: Uh, bad, I assume.
Bex: We know nothing. But yeah, we- But, but is [01:31:00] it, like, one of those things where you … like, she literally would be, like, the overbearing mother that comes in and takes over, or is Karen just, like, over-exaggerating? We don’t know, ’cause we never meet the woman, and we never will.
Alice: Yeah. No idea.
Bex: We know nothing about Karen. Um, but they just-
Ellen: Justice for Karen
Bex: Hen then goes to Google whether they should take Denny out of the carrier. No, she doesn’t. Um- Her phone dings, so she goes to get her phone. Um, but she’s joking about they should Google it to work out whether they should take him out of the carrier or not. Um, the ding was a notification on her phone, which she then reads out to Karen, um, the Senate has voted to repeal the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.
Ellen: Yay!
Alice: Um, so yeah, so they get real excited about it, and Hen says, “Does this mean I’m about to be living with an astronaut?” Which begs the question, was Karen just going to Houston to hang out at NASA?
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Rather than being [01:32:00] an astronaut?
Bex: But then like we said, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell didn’t specifically apply to NASA. It was probably one of those-
Alice: But why is she-
Bex: … unspoken things?
Alice: Now, why is she now okay to go to-
Bex: I don’t know
Alice: … NASA when she was already going to Hou- Yeah.
Bex: Look, I-
Alice: Dunno …
Bex: I honest- I honestly feel like they’ve gone-
Alice: And how is it still 2010?
Bex: I, I really think that at this point they’ve gone, “Shit, we’re in 2010. Like, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell happened in 2010. That was a really big thing. We should probably drop it into the episode ’cause it’s a really timely thing that happened in that timeframe.” Um, and they’ve kind of wedged it in sideways to make it fit, and it doesn’t quite fit.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Um, but it also leads onto the segue where Hen’s gone, “Am I gonna, about to be living with an astronaut?” and Karen’s like, “I can’t be an astronaut now I have a kid.” And Hen is like, “But Karen, this was your dream.” And Karen goes, “Yeah, it was my [01:33:00] dream, but now I have a new one here on Earth with you and Denny.”
Ellen: Aw.
Alice: Very cute
Bex: Very sad too. Like cute and sad
Ellen: It is sad, but they, they are gonna have a little family moment. Oh, we’re nearly there.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: So Karen gets home in the present day. Hen is helping her come inside because she can barely… She, she can walk, but she’s a bit sore. They set her up a little bed on the couch so that she doesn’t have to, you know, move around much. Karen’s like, “I’m fine.” Hen’s like, “You are not fine.”
Bex: She’s not fine.
Ellen: No. But she, she hates- Uh, but she’s also- … this part, yeah, of getting better Yeah. She’s like- She’s like, “I hate sitting around waiting” …
Bex: the, the endless hours of nothing to do. And Hen thinks it’s cute, like her wife, the, you know, the, the Energizer Bunny, and Karen’s like, “Well, one of us has to be, [01:34:00] like, constantly on the go because you’re about to start year three of medical school, and so I’m gonna have to do everything around here.”
And Hen’s like, “Yeah, um, about that, uh, I’m not going to medical school.” Karen’s like
Alice: “You what?”
Bex: “I’m not, I’m not, I’m not gonna be an invalid forever. Like, I’ll, I’ll get better. You don’t have to quit medical school because of me.” And she’s like, “No, I’m not quitting because of you. Um, somebody told me recently that life as I knew, life as I knew it was going to change completely.”
Thank you, Deirdre. Um, and Karen’s like, “Yeah, but we knew that, didn’t we?” Hen’s like, “Uh, actually I didn’t. I thought I could have my cake and eat it too. Um, and I’m starting to realize that I can’t.” And she realizes that-
And, I have,
Ellen: I have FOMO. I didn’t realize what I’d have to give up-
Bex: Yes
Ellen: … in order to be a doctor.
Bex: Yep. Pretty much, and, uh, the FOMO, the things that I’m missing out on are [01:35:00] more important to me than the dream that I had. Like, the… I love that they’re, they’re like, “Yeah, but it was your dream to be a doctor.” And, like, she didn’t wanna be a doctor until, like, a year ago.
Alice: Yeah. Well, two years ago. They just forgot about it for a year.
Bex: She had, like- But even then it was, like, one or two conversations. Like, she did something incredibly reckless in an ambulance and someone said to her “Oh, maybe you should be a surgeon.” And she’s gone-
Alice: Okay
Bex: “Maybe I should be a surgeon.”
Ellen: Yeah, maybe I should be a surgeon.
Bex: Okay, this is now my dream.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Like, this is my dream. I had like 30 seconds of thought, and now I’m gonna make that in my entire personality and be a doctor.
So, um, so yes, she is not going to go to medical school. After like three whole episodes of nothing but med school, that’s now gone. That’s irrelevant. Um, she’s gonna go back to the 118. Apparently she told Denny this before she told her wife, by the way. Because Denny comes in with a cake and he’s like, [01:36:00] “Hey, did Mama tell you she’s gonna be a firefighter again?” and Karen’s like, “She just did. Did she tell you first?”
Ellen: Yeah. But, um, Denny says the firefighter uniform is cooler than scrubs, so she’s made the right choice.
Bex: He’s not wrong. And Karen wants… goes back to Hen and she’s like, “Hen, are you sure? That was your dream.” Again, for like 30 seconds. This is not a lifelong thing.
Ellen: No.
Bex: Um, but then she mirrors Karen and she says, “No, but this, like, the family, you, Denny, this is my dream.”
Ellen: Aw.
Bex: So they’re both giving up their quote, unquote dreams, where, like, Karen actually gave up a dream and then Hen, like, gave up s- something, um, for each other. Mm. And for Denny.
Ellen: It’s super cute, but I don’t know if the sort of co- like the analogy or whatever the parallel [01:37:00] really works that well.
Bex: Yeah, ’cause you’ve got, like, Karen going, “Yes, I’ve known I’ve wanted to go to space since July 18th, 1983 when my parents woke me up-
Ellen: Yes.
Bex: … to watch Sally Ride go into space.” And Hen’s like, “Yeah, last year I stuck a hand in a guy’s chest, and I don’t know, I thought maybe I could be a doctor.”
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Thought it might be fun. But then, like, I don’t get what she… Like, like, she’s in med school, so she can never, ever… I don’t know. It’s just, it’s like, “Oh, I might give… Like, I’m giving up my family.” And it’s like, doctors also have families. But also, like-
Bex: But the 118 is her family as well …
Ellen: it’s, b- yeah, it’s being a firefighter-
Bex: so she’d have to give them up. Yeah.
Ellen: that she can’t give up. Yeah.
Bex: Yeah. And again, as we’ve established, once you leave the 118 you are shunned and you are never allowed to speak to any of them ever again.
Alice: Poor Lucy. Poor, poor Lucy. Broke her leg and got cut out.
Bex: Or, you know, or Eddie, but that was kind of like a self-imposed, um-
Alice: That was self, yeah
Bex: exile.
Alice: Um, [01:38:00] but she didn’t say, like, the flashbacks weren’t to the 118 and how much the 118 meant to her. It was to Karen and how much Karen meant to her. And then she was just like- Yeah … “Oh, I’ll be giving…” It’s like, are you leaving your wife because you’re in med school?
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Because they wanted the parallel, but the like, as Ellen said, the parallels don’t really stand up to each other.
Alice: It didn’t really work, yeah. Like, I love the ep- But yeah, when you, when you look into it, it’s like the, “Okay, sure.”
Bex: I just feel bad for Karen. She’s literally given up everything for this family. And then- Yeah … when you think about, like, this, and then you go back to, like, season one when Hen was cheating on her with Eva after- Right … like, all of this
Alice: Fuck off. Oh,
Ellen: yeah.
Alice: Fuck off, Hen. Poor Karen. Justice for Karen. I want B- I want, um-
Bex: Justice for Karen
Alice: I want Karen Begins. Take us right back to July.
Bex: I want an actual fucking Karen Begins. Yeah. I wanna know about Karen.
Alice: Take us back to 4:00 AM in July, whenever it was, 1980-something. [01:39:00] And yeah, I wanna go all the way back.
Bex: I want more Karen episodes.
Alice: Yeah, I love Karen.
Bex: Like, but not sort of blowing up her lab and putting her and Denny in danger. I want more of her, like, going through the club with the license trying to find, like, doing the amateur detective shit.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Give us Karen and Michael’s detective agency, please.
Ellen: Give us- Give us Karen doing some more science. We didn’t see much of that, only a little bit, but it was pretty good.
Bex: Yeah, ’cause she’s a love interest. She only gets to do stuff when Hen is around. She doesn’t exist outside of Hen, apparently.
Ellen: Mm, yeah. Anyway, I thought Tracy was brilliant in this episode.
Bex: Tracy’s great. Tracy was brilliant. Uh-
Ellen: Yeah …
Bex: confirmation that whoever is doing hair and makeup at the 118 cannot do wigs for shit. Um, ’cause-
Ellen: Yeah, it’s a bad look
Bex: And they should just never, they should, they should just stop p- putting people in wigs, um, ’cause they can. It’s terrible every single [01:40:00] time.
Ellen: They have to show that time has passed, apparently. So a wig is, like, the easiest change to make.
Bex: Oh, no, no, no. I am not, I’m not questioning the use of the wigs, I’m questioning their use of the wigs, or the wigs that they are using, ’cause they are bad.
Ellen: Yeah. Yes.
Bex: Or they’re applied badly. I don’t know. They need to go-
Alice: They’re applied badly, yeah …
Bex: they need to go find whoever was doing Julianna Margulies’ wigs and go, like, “Teach us, please.”
Alice: It’s just funny ‘ cause like the, the only reason that she has a wig is to be like, “Oh, look, she used to like be all business-y.” And it’s like, is she not st- what? She’s still in a lab.
Ellen: She did, like, dress kinda differently back then as well than she does these days.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Then again, so did Hen.
Ellen: Maybe she, maybe she’s just 10 years older and-
Alice: Yeah, so did Hen
Ellen: … changed. Yeah.
Bex: I don’t know. Justice for Karen.
Ellen: Yeah, well, I, I quite liked this episode. It was good.
Alice: Yeah, I really liked it.
Ellen: It was exciting.
Bex: It was. I [01:41:00] like it when things blow up and body parts get ripped off. I love the gore.
Ellen: It was gorier than usual. Um, I feel like we explained this episode in such depth that we, there isn’t a lot more to say about it.
Alice: No. We liked it. We, we want more Karen.
Ellen: Yeah. Yes. Who wrote this episode? I didn’t even look at that.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: Yes wrote this episode?
Alice: Yes. Yeah, I was like, “What?”
Bex: Someone, someone wrote this episode.
Alice: Someone did write this episode, yep. Generally how episodes work.
Ellen: I’m, I’m sure.
Bex: Um, Nicole, Nicole Barraza Keim, um, who has previously written “FOMO”, funnily enough.
Alice: Hey. Oh. Big, big FOMO fan apparently.
Ellen: Yeah. What happened in FOMO? I can’t even remember.
Bex: Um, Bobby watches MAFS confirmed. Um-
Ellen: Oh. Ca- That was a fun episode too, I think. Well, that part was fun anyway.
Bex: Karen had [01:42:00] FOMO for her youth. Um, so apparently Hitu and
Ellen: That was the one where they went to the… where Karen-
Bex: They went to the club
Ellen: … she and Karen went to the club. Yep. Okay.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: That was a, that was a fun episode.
Bex: Um, so apparently Hitu and Alvin are the ones that recommended that ice restaurant. Um, yeah, that episode.
Ellen: Yeah. Well, that’s another writer to add to the ones we like.
Bex: I think we covered it.
Alice: We went very in depth.
Bex: But there wasn’t a lot of depth.
Ellen: We did.
Alice: No.
Ellen: No. All right. Well, where are we going next week?
Bex: Uh, next week, uh, PAW Patrol race to the rescue when a fading movie star… sorry. Athena and the 118 race to the rescue, uh, when a fading movie star is plagued by a series of near-death experiences, and they misspelled experiences in case you’re interested. Um-
Ellen: Experences. [01:43:00]
Alice: Experences.
Bex: Um, yeah. That’s it. That’s all they wrote
Alice: Yep. Okay So there’s a movie star that’s fading, and they’re plagued
Bex: By near-death experiences
Ellen: Sounds like a hoot.
Bex: Um-
Alice: Yep
Bex: Yes. For anyone, for those of you listening at home, when they do the promos, um, the, for the next episode, there’s usually a, a headline and then the body of the promo. So it would go, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, race to the rescue in an all new 9-1-1 episode.” It gives you the date, and then underneath it gives, like, the summary where they tell you about either every single emergency that’s ever gonna happen in the episode, and probably some that don’t happen in the episode. Um-
Alice: Yeah, this one is like-
Bex: Um, this one, it’s literally Athena and the 118 race to the rescue, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the body of the promo underneath says exactly the same thing. They didn’t even try to write a summary for it.
Ellen: Wow. Yeah. So anything [01:44:00] could happen.
Alice: Go, girl, give us nothing.
Bex: Um, triggers for next week’s episode, um, incl- are limited to claustrophobia, uh, in which somebody is going to get wax poured over their face, and discussion of predatory psychics.
Ellen: That’s it?
Bex: And I also … That, that’s all they wrote for the, the triggers. Um-
Ellen: Wow. Okay.
Bex: And I do know that, the, the dude on TikTok that green screens himself into episodes and then explains how bad the firefighting in the episodes are, um, he does this episode. So I’m looking forward to going back and finding that- Oh and seeing what he thinks about it.
Ellen: Excellent.
Alice: I actually ha- I don’t remember next week’s episode at all, but I have a lot of notes on it, so there you go.
Bex: Um, and next week’s episode is called “Cursed”.
Ellen: Um, well please let us know what you [01:45:00] thought about episode six.
Bex: If you have any knowledge about NASA and its connection to the military, um-
Alice: Oh my God, please tell us about NASA.
Bex: Please-
Alice: We like to hear about space
Bex: Please let us know.
Ellen: I would love to know about NASA.
Bex: Anything you would care to tell us about NASA and the military, or NASA and/or the military, just going to space in general,
Alice: And we, we will be happy to tell you about the Elvis Festival.
Bex: Which Alice has never been to-
Ellen: Or The Dish
Bex: … because her father planned the vacations around the Elvis Festival, so she’s never actually-
Alice: I swear to God he did
Bex: … been to it.
Alice: Please. Is it still happening?
Ellen: Yes. Yeah, it happened this year.
Alice: There you go. How good’s that?
Ellen: Um, but the only reason I know that is because they randomly mention it sometimes on the news, like, when it’s on.
Alice: I- yeah, it’s always on the … Yeah, that’s it. I don’t know why it’s always on the news in Queensland, but it’s always- Yeah … on the news in Queensland, and I’m like, “Okay.”
Ellen: Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe there’s lots of Elvis fans around here. I don’t, I don’t know.
Alice: And, and now that I’m back in Victoria, I never hear about it anymore.
Ellen: Oh.
Alice: But yeah, we always … Um, yeah, every year in the second week of January.
Bex: Is that a, is that a date [01:46:00] significant to Elvis, or is it just the date that-
Alice: Yes, it’s around his … It’s, um, for his birthday.
Bex: Ah, there we go.
Alice: It runs from the s- oh my God. It, the next year, it’s, it runs from the 6th to the 10th of January. So yeah, we g- we would always just miss it, because we’d go up Christmas and then come back, like-
Bex: Oh, that’s a shame …
Alice: two weeks. Yeah. Um-
Ellen: Parkes is probably closer to you than it is to me anyway.
Alice: I know. It is. And that’s why I don’t understand why I never hear anything about it now, but we always heard about it in Queensland.
Um, so yes, if you want any more details on the Parkes Elvis Festival, uh, let us know. I know less about The Dish because it’s been several, many years since I’ve watched The Dish.
Ellen: It’s a great movie. Um- I loved that movie
Alice: … it, yeah, I remember really liking it, but I haven’t watched it since I was, like, s- probably 15.
Ellen: No, I haven’t either.
Bex: I don’t think I’ve seen it.
Alice: Oh, maybe we should watch that. Good. And [01:47:00] ignore the rest of, um-
Ellen: Season six?
Alice: And ignore the rest of season six.
Ellen: Ah, yes. Anyway, yes, do let us know. Um, you can leave us a message in all the usual places, on the website, thatweewooshow.com, or on Spotify or YouTube or social media.
Um, thank you for listening this week, and we will see you next time for episode seven, which is called “Cursed”. 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.[01:48:00]
Alice: Are we, um, are we all devastated about the Socceroos’ loss last night?
Bex: Oh, did they lose?
Ellen: I heard about it this morning.
Alice: I’m so sorry to break this news, Bex. I’m so sorry.
Bex: I- Am not following
Ellen: I couldn’t really care less, but good on them for getting as far as they did, I guess. Uh- I was more-
Bex: Good on the Man-tildas for getting as far as they did …
Ellen: The Man-tildas
Alice: I, um, I only knew that they were even playing because a whole bunch of idiots… So like, a, um, all the states changed, like made exceptions to laws about, like opening late. So like Victoria for example, were allowed to stay open, like normally they have to close at 1:00 AM, um, and they were allowed to stay open-
Bex: Oh, yeah, yeah
Alice: … until, um-
Bex: We did the same down here.
Ellen: 7:00 AM.
Bex: I just didn’t realize um that they’d actually played and lost.
Alice: Yeah. Um, but yeah, so like all the states did it, and there were a bunch of [01:49:00] people, like when the Victorian government announced it, there were a bunch of people in their comments, and like even my dad, were just like, “Oh, you know, must be an election year,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Like, “What’s that gonna…” And I’m like, “Dad, it’s literally a countrywide thing. Like every state is doing it.” Um, and like, yeah, a bunch of the comments are just like, “Ugh, why? Like that’s so stupid. Ha ha. You’re only doing…” And it’s like, no, it’s literally a, well, like a countrywide thing. Like everyone is doing it. Um-
Bex: I do want that same energy when the Matildas play in the next World Cup though.
Alice: Well, they did air the Matildas… Like we had the Matildas playing here, and so like it was a big deal. But, um, but yes, there was a whole big thing about the Matildas as well. Um, hello Hudson. How you doing? You sleepy?
Um, but yeah, anyway, and then my, um, friend, one of my friends in England, um, was saying how their pubs have also had that law extended, like that they’re, they’re allowed to o- like stay open late or open later, um, or earlier.
Ellen: Mm-hmm.
Alice: Later. [01:50:00] Um, ’cause like it’s like 5:00 AM, so it’s like is it early or late? Um, and not only that-
Ellen: I think it’s later for them
Alice: … but the schools, because they’re still at school at this time of year in England, the schools are opening, have been given the option to open later so that the kids can get up or stay up and watch it, and then come into school at lunchtime and just have a half day
Bex: Okay. Wow And so did they then get all of the businesses for the parents who work, did they also get a half day?
Alice: Right? Did they also do that? Like, um-
Bex: Like, great, my kid gets to sleep in. I still need to go to work
Alice: I guess the parents just call in sick
Bex: Or is my boss gonna give me a half day too? What the hell?
Alice: Um, but oh, it was so funny. But I was just like, oh my God, like it just cracked me up that like all these people who are like, “Oh, it must be an election year,” it’s just like, yeah, it must be an election year in England too. Like, what are you talking about? It’s like trying to build community. Sorry. Fine, no fun for anyone. Go back home and sit in the corner.
Ellen: There was, there was a bunch of pe- they were asking people on the news about it, and everyone’s like, [01:51:00] um, I… Like some people were like, “Uh, I’m gonna have a beer at like 4:00 AM? Like, what? Why, why would you do that?” And then there’s other people going, “Oh yeah, why not? We’re g- go and have beer for breakfast, of course”
Bex: I mean, that’s Anzac Day, right? You, you wake up, you do the dawn service, and you have gunfire breakfast, which is like beer and bacon and egg.
Alice: Oh, Jesus.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: So-
Alice: I’ve never done it.
Bex: Oh, damn. No. Yes.
Alice: Oh, I’ve only been up for it like once, and then I went back to sleep again. Um-
Bex: Yeah …
Alice: but fucking hell, it’s funny.
Ellen: I don’t know how it went. I didn’t see anything in the news about it.
Alice: I had to Google it because we-
Bex: Did we lose badly?
Alice: So I think we lost in overtime?
Ellen: No, no, it was a penalty shootout. Yeah. Yeah, it was a pen-
Bex: Oh, okay
Ellen: … like they did really well. It was like one all or something, I think. Maybe it was nil all?
Alice: It was one all. I’m pretty sure it was one all.
Ellen: Oh, one all. Okay.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: And then, um-
Bex: Okay
Ellen: but one of the… it was one of them was like an own goal, so we didn’t actually score.
Alice: Oh. Oh my God.
Ellen: But, um-
Alice: Again? That’s awkward …
Ellen: but it, um, but yeah, penalty shootout and [01:52:00] we, like they got one and we didn’t or something. I don’t know. I just- I didn’t actually watch it. I just heard the, heard about it later.
Alice: Dad, dad said something about it, and I was just like, yeah, I had to Google the results ’cause I hadn’t heard anything, and he’s like, “Surely if you Google the results you unders- like you know that we haven’t won,” ’cause otherwise it’d be everywhere. And I’m like, “Right.” Yeah. It was just a very awkward silence.
Um, but I’m like, yeah, it’s, it’s just ’cause it’s just the men’s sport, so no one cares.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah.
Alice: Yeah. Um, no, my feed was full of Taylor Swift all day.
Ellen: Oh, yeah.
Bex: Yes
Alice: TayTay’s married.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Um, and Adam Sandler officiated.
Bex: The next album’s gonna be insufferable.
Alice: Um, just-
Bex: We, yeah. Now we need-
Ellen: All love songs, all of them …
Bex: now we need them to get divorced so that she can actually write some decent music.
Alice: I know, right? It’s just like, okay.
Bex: That’s not just an entire album about his penis again.
Alice: Wasn’t it, it was one song. Come on.
Bex: It was one song too many.
Alice: It was one song too many. Um. [01:53:00]
Ellen: And all of the, um, astrology girlies on, um, Threads are like, “Oh, why did they get married today? It’s got like the worst, the worst astrological conditions ever for a wedding.” Like, what?
Alice: I don’t know, Madison Square Garden was free today.
Bex: Taylor doesn’t strike me as an astro- as a astrological girlie though.
Alice: No, not at all.
Ellen: No.
Alice: Oh, that’s so funny. Poor astrological girlies.
Ellen: They were, they were wigging out a little bit,
Alice: I feel like. I’m just, I’m still-
Bex: How are the Gale… I think I need to go onto Tumblr and find out how the Gaylors are going, ’cause they must be really going through it right now.
Ellen: Oh, yeah. They-
Alice: I know, right?
Ellen: are pretty upset about the whole thing.
Alice: It’s okay. It’s just a cover. Yeah. Elton John was married too, once, right?
Ellen: That’s true. All right, speaking of-
Alice: We should probably talk about this episode
Ellen: … of gay people, let’s talk about Hen and [01:54:00] Karen.
Alice: Oh, what a segue. Bex finding out they lost, the heartbreak. Just awful. Poor Bex.
Bex: Yeah, such a heartbreak. I didn’t even realize this like- These sobs, I know. Look, my extent of what I know about the World Cup is, uh, that Scotland are hilarious and I love them. Yes. They drank Boston dry. That was brilliant. Um-
Ellen: And Norway. Norway doing their rowboat thing.
Bex: The Nor- Norway doing their rowing. Um, the giant Norwegian who looks like he’s walk- who’s, is like 15 feet tall and walks like he’s walking through concrete walls everywhere he goes.
Ellen: Oh.
Alice: Oh my God.
Bex: Um-
Ellen: I haven’t seen him
Bex: uh, Erling, oh, what is his name? He’s like … He keeps reminding me of the, the comment in Goblet of Fire about Viktor Krum, who, like, he’s an absolutely brilliant Quidditch player, but he walks like a duck when he’s on the ground because he’s not, like, meant to walk. This guy is brilliant on the field, but [01:55:00] it looks like he’s just not designed to be off the field.
Erling Haaland is this guy.
Ellen: Right.
Bex: His specialty is scoring goals off his opponents’ faces.
Alice: What a specialty.
Bex: ‘Cause he’s just, he, he, like, he play, he’s so, um, strategically aware of where everybody is on the field, and so he will just, like, pinball. He’ll kick and it’ll ricochet off, like, five different places, off somebody’s face and then into, um, into the goal.
Alice: Oh my God.
Ellen: Amazing.
Bex: Anyway, so that’s like, that’s the ext- Oh, oh, and the Aussies, um, the Aussies getting, uh, the Americans riled up with our chants.
Ellen: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: I saw a post from someone Danish or so- or one, some Scandinavian who wasn’t Norwegian, and they were like, “Norway’s supposed to be [01:56:00] like the boring ones. How, how did they get so cool? Why are they the cool ones now?”
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