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 12 of the sixth season of 9-1-1, titled “Recovery”.
Despite the case being closed, Bobby is determined to prove his AA sponsor was murdered and bring his killer to justice. Buck struggles with his post-traumatic stress.
Content warnings for episode 6.12:
depictions of coerced action, discussions of near-death experiences, drug use, flashbacks to addiction support group meetings, i.e. AA, flashbacks to relapses of characters with addictions, the Hollywood evil rehab facility trope, illegal disposal of a body by burning, death of a minor POC character, needles, intravenous drug overdose.
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Our intro music is “Tensions” by Northern Points.
Episode Transcript
Maddie: [00:00:00] 9-1-1. What’s your emergency?
Ellen: Welcome back to That WeeWoo Show, a podcast where we watch and discuss episodes of the ABC show, 9-1-1. I’m Ellen.
Alice: I’m Alice.
Bex: And I’m Bex.
Ellen: Uh, thank you to everyone who has been listening to our episodes, and an especial thank you to all the people who’ve left comments this week. We’ve got a heap of them. Hooray.
Alice: We do.
Bex: That’s what happens- So nice … when we get to good episodes. People are actually interested in talking about them.
Ellen: Yeah, well, these were for, like, previous ones, not the one that we did last week, ’cause we record, like, a week in advance. So anyway.
Bex: I still count in a f- um, those
Ellen: “In a Flash” …
Bex: still the last one. But-
Ellen: And “Red Flag”
Bex: … yeah, In a Fl- I s- well, Red Flag, no, [00:01:00] but “In a Flash” is still a good episode.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: It’s saved by the, the last two minutes, but it still counts.
Ellen: Well, um, we’ll start with, um, thanks to Sylvie on Spotify who left us a note to remind me that it was actually Misha who spoiled the end of, um, season 12, um, because he was talking about, it was the “Scoobynatural” thing.
He was talking about doing the voiceovers for that Scooby-Doo thing, and that was in the next season. And everyone’s like, “Wait a minute. You just died.”
Alice: You, you were dead.
Ellen: And he’s like, “Oh.” So yeah. Apologies to Mr. Padalecki, um, it was actually Misha who spoiled it.
Bex: Honestly, we should’ve known it was Misha.
Ellen: I’d forgotten all about that.
Alice: We sh- should’ve known it was Misha.
Ellen: We should’ve known. It was Misha. Honestly. He can’t keep a secret. Um-
Alice: No
Ellen: Kiera left us a, a comment on, I’m guessing that was Blue Sky, um, saying that- Yeah … [00:02:00] the, the baby ejection scene in that, ” In a Flash” episode is probably really tense and enjoyable for people with zero medical knowledge.
And I, I don’t have very, very little medical knowledge, but um, I know how a baby works. But I still enjoyed that episode- Yeah … just because it was so chaotic, and like, it was t- it was tense.
Alice: When you said Blue Sky, it’s been so long that I was on, like, that type of social media that I was literally like, “What episode was ‘Blue Sky’?”
Bex: No, it’s a… I’m, I was trying to remember as well.
Alice: Oh, okay, cool.
Bex: And I’m the one who updates the damn platform.
Alice: Yeah, we love you Kiera, even if we can’t remember what platform.
Bex: Pigeon reminded us that, uh, Robert Wade Nash coming from Minneapolis would know storms. Like he’d know ball when it comes to storms, and he would not be sending his men up onto a ladder in the middle of an electrical storm.
Ellen: You would think not. [00:03:00]
Bex: Buck being from Hershey would also be familiar with storms and should not have been volunteering to go up a ladder in the middle of a storm. None of them should’ve been up there. None of them.
Alice: No. None of them should’ve been up there.
Ellen: There was a lot of things wrong-
Alice: It was so stupid
Ellen: with a lot of things in that episode, but, um, but it was like-
Alice: And yet here we are.
Ellen: Yeah, you just have to turn that part of your brain off. And roll with it.
Bex: Uh, Pigeon, uh, reminded us that in said giant metal ladder in a electrical storm, Eddie should not have been driving the ambulance, uh, mostly because he should’ve been in the back of one getting checked out because technically he also got struck by lightning.
Alice: Yeah, yeah.
Bex: And got thrown quite a significant way off the truck.
Ellen: Off the top of the truck.
Bex: Um, yeah.
Ellen: He landed on the ground.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Yes. We, I mean we will give them a little bit of, uh, grace in that they were probably so focused on Buck that they didn’t realize Eddie was hurt, [00:04:00] but yeah, dude should’ve been checked out.
Um-
Ellen: I guess he had a helmet on. He would’ve been fine. Sure. His helmet came off, but you know. Except
Bex: it knocked his, it knocked his helmet off.
Ellen: Uh, let’s not ask too many questions about that.
Bex: No.
Ellen: Did we get a comment on TikTok?
Bex: We did. We got a, uh, a comment from, uh, Empire on our red flag episode where I think my caption for our episode was something like, um, it was the most random bullshit episode, and they said, “Yes, this show did a whole lot of random bullshit and not a lot of being actual first responders.”
Which unfortunately, yeah, as, as the season goes on, they’re kind of forgetting that the point of the show is about first responders and their professional-
Alice: Did this-
Bex: … emergencies
Alice: Did this episode we’re covering this week, they didn’t go out on a call. They, they didn’t even see the firehouse.
Ellen: No, I don’t think they were [00:05:00] at work at all
Alice: There was zero f- first response-
Ellen: Oh, was Buck talking to anybody at work in his bits?
Bex: No, ’cause he was- No, Chim-
Alice: I don’t even think Chimney was in the episode
Ellen: Oh, no, he wasn’t allowed to go to work
Bex: He was on, he was on medical leave. Mm.
Ellen: Yeah. ‘
Bex: Cause Doctor, Doctor what’s-her-face, the only cardiologist in Los Angeles, said that he could go back to work.
Ellen: And for once Bobby wasn’t, like, doing his snooping stuff in the station house as we’ve seen him in the, in the last episode.
Wow.
Alice: Yeah, it was Chi-
Ellen: Okay, so no wonder this bull-
Alice: I don’t think Chim was in this episode
Ellen: … no wonder we thought this episode was bullshit, ’cause there was just-
Bex: Um, yes …
Ellen: there was no firefighting.
Bex: Chim was in, Chim was in the episode because Maddie comes home, um, and Chim delivers the fondue set that Hen has dropped off.
Ellen: Oh, that’s right.
Bex: It was like-
Alice: Right, yep
Bex: … one scene but yes, he was in the episode.
Ellen: Okay, so it, this week we’re gonna be discussing episode 12 of Season 6, which is called “Recovery”. But before we do that, [00:06:00] um, Alice, you wanna remind us what happened last week?
Alice: Yeah, last week on 9-1-1, Buck escaped an alternate reality after being trapped in a coma dream because he was struck by lightning. That was-
Ellen: Yep …
Alice: that was the episode.
Ellen: And he don’t need to impress no one except himself.
Alice: That’s it. Uh, good episode, just not much to, like, summarize there.
Ellen: And his mom’s gonna buy him a couch.
Alice: Um, yeah.
Bex: And possibly redecorate his apartment. Um-
Alice: He doesn’t mind. It’s fine.
Bex: This week Bobby is determined to solve the murder of his AA sponsor despite the case being closed. Meanwhile, Buck struggles with his post-traumatic stress.
Ellen: And that is everything that happens in this episode.
Bex: That is literally everything that happens in this episode.
Alice: Somehow they stretch it out for 45 minutes, but that’s, yep, that, that’s the, yeah, that’s the episode. All right, uh, see you next week, girls. Um- Good chatting. Uh-
Ellen: I have a feeling this might end up being a short, [00:07:00] um, chat again anyway. Like, not that short, but-
Alice: Well, we start out with a flashback to Season 1, which seems to go for a good 10 minutes, um, even though we have seen it, like, we’ve seen it before, and also they recapped it last week, but apparently we need to flash back.
Um, have we done the triggers yet, though?
Bex: We have not.
Alice: Okay, let’s do that and then let’s get into Season 1 episode- And then we’ll jump back into-
Bex: … whatever apparently. I think it’s Episode 4. Um, okay, so before we dive in, um, be warned that this episode contains depictions of coerced action, discussions of near-death experiences, drug use, flashbacks to addiction support group meetings, i.e.
AA, flasha- flashbacks to relapses of characters with addictions, the Hollywood evil rehab facility trope, um, the ille-, mm- mention of [00:08:00] illegal disposal of body by burning or actual depiction of illegal disposal of body by burning?
Ellen: No, they do actually show-
Alice: No, we see it, yeah
Ellen: … him setting the body on fire, yeah.
Bex: Okay. We do get to see the illegal disposal of a body by burning, the death of a minor POC character, uh, needles and IV in- intravenous drug overdose.
Alice: A lot of triggers, for-
Bex: Much fun …
Alice: a nothing burger of an episode.
Bex: Also Sudoku, if that’s a particular trigger for you, ’cause- … it is for some people.
Ellen: I’m not, I’m terrible at Sudoku. I can do, I can do word games, like word searches and word-related games, but number games, can’t do it.
Alice: Yeah, as someone with dyscalculia, dyscalcul- yup, the math version of dyslexia, uh, no thank you.
Bex: Dyscalculia.
Alice: Yeah, dyscalculia.
Bex: It’s just patterns. It’s just you’ve gotta like-
Ellen: Yeah
Bex: … put the numbers in the right spots.
Ellen: You’ve just gotta add them up. Yeah, no.
Bex: It’s just patterns.
Ellen: If it was, if I had it on my phone I’d probably be better at it, but it’s just that like-
Alice: Like, I like that you think that I can add.
Ellen: I can’t-
Bex: You don’t even-
Alice: [00:09:00] I can’t read the numbers
Bex: … you don’t even have to add. You just- Doing- You don’t even have to add.
You just have to make sure the w- each number, each square has one of each number, and each line has one of each number, and each row has one of each number, and it doesn’t replicate. I think I was- So it’s just patterns
Ellen: … burned by, I think I was burned by the f- doing it with pencil, like on paper, where you get to a certain point and then you realize that all of this is wrong, and like you just-
Bex: Oh, no
Ellen: filled it all in and you’re like, “Well, I’m screwed.”
Alice: Yeah, I’m like the, don’t they have to add up? Like don’t, doesn’t each line have to add up to something? Mm.
Ellen: No, they-
Bex: Not necessarily
Ellen: … each line has to have one of each number.
Bex: Yeah.
Alice: That seems too easy. I’m pretty sure you guys are doing Sudoku right, wrong.
Ellen: Let’s, let’s not tangent too much, otherwise we’ll be here all night when we get through this episode.
Alice: I would rather discuss Sudoku.
Bex: Okay, um-
Ellen: We do have, uh, like large chunks of flashback which we’ve already seen before, like, uh, um, Buck and Hen like getting into Bobby’s [00:10:00] apartment and finding him, like chucking him in the shower and, um, and him breaking down when he asks them for help and stuff. Which at the time was like super heartbreaking, and now seeing it in flashback is pretty sad as well.
And then after that we see Bobby actually going to an AA meeting, and I feel like this is maybe one of the first times he’s been back or something. Like f- maybe
Bex: I think this is his first time ever. Yeah. Because he, he goes to this meeting. Wendell spots him, um, because he’s sitting in the back row, arms crossed, looking incredibly standoffish.
Um, Wendell strikes up a conversation with him and asks him eventually, whether he has a regular meeting, and Bobby said he used to have one in Minnesota, but since he came to LA he’s just kind of been talking to Hot Priest and God. Um, so this is his first-
Ellen: Oh, I miss Hot Priest
Bex: … LA AA meeting. Yeah. Yes But that’s essentially, we’ve, we’re getting, we’re getting [00:11:00] the fucking background context for Wendell that we should have had three episodes ago.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Yeah, if we’d had this, like, a season ago, I would’ve been like, “Oh, fuck, Wendell died. That’s a bit sad.” Instead I was like, “Who the fuck is this guy in Bobby’s house?”
Ellen: Yeah, it is a very backwards way of doing this. Like, uh, in a way it’s nice to get this backstory, but we should have already had it, I feel like.
Alice: ‘Cause now I don’t care ’cause he’s already dead, so
Bex: I feel like it could have worked if we’d had it in that episode. Like, if we had, they go to the fire, “Oh shit, it’s Wendell,” and then we start getting all of this stuff. So the, so we’ve gone the shock of, “Oh my God, this person is dead. We don’t know who it is, but it’s really affecting Bobby,” and then all of this kind of plays out and we realize how important he was to Bobby.
It’s like, “Oh. Oh my God. Wendell’s dead,” and then you get the investigation and you’re actually invested in the investigation rather than all of the bullshit that happened in “Red Flag”. Then you get two episodes of a gap and now we’re… And, like, four, three months as well because they did “Red [00:12:00] Flag”, they had the hiatus, then you had Buck’s episodes, and now we’re back to Bobby.
And by this stage I have lo- any caring that I had is gone.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: I don’t understand how the fuck to play this game.
How are you supposed to work out-
Bex: Focus!
Alice: … what the nu- where the numbers are supposed to go?
Bex: Because each number can onl- there’s, if you look at… No. No. Right. We- So Bobby meets Wendell-
Ellen: Wait ’til after.
Bex: Bobby meets Wendell at AA. He’s do- he’s very reluctant to be there. Wendell gets under his skin. Um, it’s, it’s a, like, a, a not cute meet cute.
Um, and then we flash forward to current day, 2024. Bobby is once again staring pensively over his backyard because the coroner is closing the case. They’ve officially ruled Wendell’s [00:13:00] death as an overdose. Bobby is not satisfied with this, and he is, he decides that he is going to track down the, the girl that May tried to get in touch with, who is no longer returning May’s calls, and see if she will talk to him, addict to addict Or as Bobby says, “We’re both in recovery,” so take a…
Is it inappropriate to say take a shot every time someone says recovery- … in an episode about people being in recovery?
Ellen: It probably is, yeah.
Bex: Yeah, just um- Okay. Um, we won’t, we won’t take a shot every-
Ellen: I’ll just have a drink of my hot chocolate in- instead.
Bex: Yeah. Yes.
Ellen: Um. Take- Yes, and this, this is, this is the point where like, so at the beginning of this with all the flashbacks and everything, I was just like, “I really don’t care.” like, this-
Alice: I would have been so much sadder if they killed Hot Priest.
Bex: Bite your tongue.
Ellen: Well, we saw Hot Priest more than we ever saw Wendell-
Alice: Yeah, exactly
Ellen: … until after he was already dead.
Alice: Like Hot Priest, th- there’s [00:14:00] history with Hot Priest. We love Hot Priest. We would have been so sad if they’d done something to Hot Priest. Thank God they didn’t.
Bex: Yes.
Alice: Um, because we like Hot Priest, but I just don’t care about Wendell.
Ellen: Yeah. Anyway, we get to this bit and Athena is sort of-
Alice: Also, I found a number and for some reason when I found out where one number goes, it filled in that number in all the squares. So I think this online- Oh … one may be really easy.
Ellen: That’s not how it’s supposed to work.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Alice is incredibly invested in this episode in case anyone was wondering.
Alice: So invested. Very
Ellen: Apparently. Anyway, um, so Athena is commiserating with Bobby because they haven’t found anything and but instead of, of like suggesting that maybe he let it go again, like I know she’s already suggested that and he was like, “Well, like I’m not gonna do that.”
He says, “I, I wanna talk to Tamara,” or I can’t- Tamara … he, he says it, he pronounces it in a weird way, uh, [00:15:00] w-
Bex: Tamara?
Ellen: … not the way that I was expecting. Yeah.
Bex: It’s like Tara. Tara and Tamara.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Tamara.
Ellen: Australians call them Tamara. But anyway, um,
Bex: Yeah …
Ellen: he’s, he’s like, “I need to talk to her,” and Athena, instead of saying, “No, you cannot talk to her, the case is closed, leave it alone,” she goes, “There might be a way.”
Alice: Yeah. Like sure, why not?
Ellen: And this, at this point I’m like, this is the kind of where I was like, okay, in, in a partnership in a, in relationship or a work partnership, you need ideally one person who is gonna have A great idea and the other person has to like keep your feet, keep the other person on the ground, you know?
Like, but in this case, Bobby and Athena are both like enablers, and one of them-
Alice: Well, it didn’t-
Ellen: … will suggest something crazy and the other one will go, “Yeah, let’s go do it.” So
Alice: It didn’t find all the r- the numbers, it just highlighted the ones that had been used, so I still didn’t get them.
Bex: Alice, focus!
Alice: Correct. [00:16:00]
Ellen: Okay, put it, put it it d- Put it away. Let’s focus just for a minute. Um, so-
Bex: I do… Okay, we’re just gonna, we’re gonna tangent, we’re gonna tangent very quickly. Is there any relationship in this show that actually does that though? Where you’ve got one person going, “This is a great idea,” and the other person goes, “You’re fucking crazy. Sit down.”
Ellen: I mean, in- ‘
Bex: Cause I f- for
Ellen: a drama- … I feel like though- … program you don’t want that to happen because then there will be no story. If, if one person was like, “No, I think we should take things easy and not…”
Bex: I mean, to not to slather the makeup on, I feel like that to some extent, um, Eddie will do that for Buck, but then he ends up tagging along, if only to make sure that Buck is okay with whatever crazy scheme he’s going on with.
Yeah. It’s like, “I don’t wanna be here. I don’t think you should do this, but I’m gonna come and supervise you.”
Ellen: Like sometimes Hen and Chim are like that, like Chim will be [00:17:00] going off on a crazy idea and Hen will be like, “No, what are you talking about? You’re an idiot.”
Alice: Only in Buck’s coma dreams
Bex: Uh, no. I, I would, um, I would present evidence of who was it that wanted to break into Bobby’s office to find evidence about Jonah, and then the other person tagged along.
Was that- Yeah. … Chim breaking in or Hen breaking in?
Ellen: Okay, maybe my analogy doesn’t work well in this instance.
Bex: No, no, no, it’s, I’m not poking fun, I’m just going, “Okay, let’s… I’m curious now. Can we think of anybody in this show that actually falls, like, within those, um, parameters?” You also have to, before we move on, continue your story about crazy people and partners.
Oh. Because I think the listeners need to know what comes next- … ’cause it’s fucking batshit insane.
Ellen: Okay. Well, then I went on, when I was doing this in the, in the live tweeting in my chat, um, that I had- I went, I, I worked with a girl in, when [00:18:00] I was, lived in the UK who, who’s she and her husband were like that, where they would have these insane ideas and then neither of them would be like, “This is a bad idea.”
They would just go and do it. So, um, they, they traveled all over the place and did weird stuff, but this one weekend she came back to work and she’s like, “Oh yeah, I went to, um, to Dorset on the weekend, and we went, we, we went to this nettle-eating competition.” And we’re all like-
Alice: I forgot how we got-
Ellen: “You did a what now?”
Alice: on the subject of the nettle-eating competition.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and she’s like, “Yeah, yeah, it’s this competition where, um, you eat stinging nettles and, uh, the person who eats the most is the winner.” And I’m like, “Okay.” And she’s like, “Yeah, and I came second.” And I’m like, “You went in the competition?” Yeah.
It’s no problem, you just, like, roll the leaves up and, and it doesn’t, like, the, the stings, sting- the little stinging, um, needle things get broken and they don’t sting you. And I’m like, “You’re insane.” Anyway, yeah. That was just my example of- … [00:19:00] the crazy things that people get up to.
Uh, so yeah, apparently it happens every year in Dorset.
Alice: I feel like that’s just peak DINK energy.
Ellen: It’s not the what?
Alice: It’s peak DINK energy, like double income, no kids. Oh, okay. Like, just packing up and going wherever you want on a whim.
Ellen: Yeah. Yes. Well, we were all in our early 20s and yes.
Alice: Yeah, good for them.
Ellen: It was fun times. Where were we? Okay. So instead of Athena-
Bex: Bobby
Ellen: … coming up with some other g- crazy idea of what they can do, h- she just sends him back to the farmers market where May met Tamara in the first place.
Alice: Yeah, let’s ha- let’s harass Tamara some more.
Ellen: Yeah. I don’t know how they found out that she was at the flower market again, because does she go there every day? Like-
Alice: She’s always at the flower market for some re-
Ellen: Yeah … yeah. Apparently.
Bex: Um- What’s, what’s even creepier is that Bobby has never met Tamara, so he has a photo of her on his phone and he’s wandering around, like, l- holding it up and comparing-
Alice: Yeah, looking for her
Bex: … the photo to everybody in the farmers market to see if he [00:20:00] can find Tamara.
Alice: Oh my God. But then, like, basically the thing is, like, Bobby’s like, “Oh, she might talk to me ’cause I’m also an addict,” and he basically goes up and is like, “Hi, I also used to be an addict,” and she’s just like, “Cool, let me spill everything to you.” It’s like, what the fuck? Like-
Ellen: Yeah, he just, he introduces her to, himself to her as “May’s stepdad”.
So she’s like, “Oh,” immediately offside to start with. But then, yeah, then she just spills. She’s like, “Yeah, he…” What he- does he actually say, “He did not d- deserve to die alone in an abandoned lot” and she’s like, “He didn’t die there.”
Bex: It’s the connection to Wendell that makes her start to spill the beans and to trust Bobby.
Alice: Yeah, it’s so weird.
Ellen: It’s just awkward kind of-
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: I don’t know.
Bex: Yeah, so Bobby shows up. He says, you know, “Wendell was a really good friend. If you knew him, I like… If you knew him like I did, you’d know he was a good man. He d- he did not deserve to die alone.”
And Tamara’s like, “Yeah, no, he didn’t actually die in the abandoned lot where [00:21:00] he was set on fire. Um, and he wasn’t actually at Winding Path as a patient. He checked himself in to help Tamara. He was going to pro- he knew that there was something wrong, and he was going to prove it.”
Ellen: Mm-hmm.
Bex: But after having dropped this bombshell, she’s like, “Okay, now I’m not gonna talk to you again,” and walks away.
Alice: Yep.
It’s so-
Ellen: Yeah, you have to let this go. Bye.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: And Bobby just lets her leave. Like, for someone who doesn’t want to let this go, he’s being very- Let, he’s being very let go-ish
Alice: He’s happy to let her go, yeah.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Well, I mean, to be fair, he’s at least conscious of the optics of, like, a, an older white man accosting a young, uh, like, BIPOC woman, um, in a public place. W- the optics would not be good.
Ellen: No, that’s true.
Bex: So at least he, he realizes that he kind of has to let her go, otherwise someone’s gonna call Athena on him.
Ellen: All right. So the other [00:22:00] storyline that is a, a bit of a breath of fresh air after all the, um, Bobby stalking stuff is that, and I mean, it’s not exactly a fresh air because Buck is, like, really, really rattling around in his apartment because he’s not allowed to do anything. So he’s stuck at home and Maddie, has decided that she’s in charge of making him not, um, you know, take things too hard. And-
Bex: What does Chim call it? The, um, Operation-
Alice: That’s what I was trying to remember, yeah …
Ellen: Buck, Buck Up Buttercup or something like that, he says.
Bex: Operation Buck Up Buttercup. That’s, yeah.
Ellen: Buck Up Buttercup.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: Um, so she’s brought over a bunch of food, and Buck says, “Do you, you remember that I live alone, right? I don’t need all this food.”
Alice: Yeah, his fridge is full.
Ellen: And she’s like-
Alice: Like, there’s so much food in there …
Ellen: She’s trying to help him out.
Bex: She is. So she stocked his fridge because she [00:23:00] doesn’t want him to stress about going to the grocery store.
Um, and Buck is trying to tell her nicely that he doesn’t need her help. Although Maddie’s, like, trying to reiterate, “Buck, you died, okay?” And Buck’s like, “Well, it was only for three minutes.”
Alice: Yeah. Great.
Ellen: And she gives him this really dirty look. And he’s like, “What? I’m, I’m not, I can’t make a joke about dying? What’s the point in living?”
Alice: Yeah, what’s the point?
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Uh, his, his point is that he promises he can take care of himself. Um, he can, like, DoorDash his own food. Although apparently Maddie has put a pot roast in the oven and that smells really good, so. Um, he, he will have that for lunch. He will have a nap until it’s time for the pot roast to be ready.
And he tells Maddie that he appreciates what she’s [00:24:00] doing, he just doesn’t need her to fuss over him. And she says that she is just glad that he is still there to fuss over.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: It’s, it’s really sweet.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: I like the Buckley siblings.
Alice: Me too.
Bex: Unfortunately, we don’t get enough of them because now we’ve gotta go back to, um, Bobby’s detective agency. Oh no. Um, where he’s checking in with Athena, telling her about his meeting with Tamara.
Alice: Yeah, for some reason the woman that he stalked to a fl- flower store ran away. Can’t imagine why.
Ellen: Yeah, they don’t really say anything in this, um, in this little scene where he’s talking to Athena, just going over what he does know, that Wendell was trying to do some kind of undercover operation at the, at the, um, rehab facility.
Bex: Oh, we do get the, um, Athena brings up that going undercover you just, you need something in [00:25:00] order to collect evidence, like a camera. Um, and somehow Bobby and/or Athena have Wendell’s credit card statements and-
Alice: Yeah, I don’t understand how, but I w- I didn’t care to question
Bex: … Athena immediately, Athena immediately within the statements finds a $300 purchase to an electronics website and is like-
Alice: Since when is anything exactly $300 too? Like, Americans add tax and shit after too, don’t they? So like, I don’t know.
Bex: I think, I think when you, um, when they pull up the screenshot later it’s not even $300, unless it’s gone on sale since Wendell bought it and Athena did her like Google search for it. But it’s also, like how does she know that it’s an electronics store and that is exactly the transactions they’re looking for?
Alice: ‘Cause it literally says, like it’s like $300 spent at electronics store. Like, the, the store’s basically called electronics store.
Bex: But how does she know that’s a camera?
Alice: Yeah, exactly.
Bex: How does she know that’s the camera?
Alice: It could have been anything.
Bex: Um, so, so Athena, um, decides that she’s [00:26:00] going to use LAFD’s resources.
Alice: Naturally.
Bex: The tech specifically to see if they can track down the camera and/or the recordings that it might have taken. Um, even though the LAF- the LAPD has closed, officially closed the case.
Alice: Yeah, becau- oh, ’cause the tox screen came back as drug overdose. Did we actually say that?
Bex: Yes, we did. Okay. We glossed over it.
Alice: But yeah, we did actually find out why they closed the case, so that’s more than we get a lot of the time.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. Bobby, at this point Bobby actually thanks her for helping him, which is nice.
Bex: But then Athena says that like, “You know, Boo, I’d do anything for you. I know that he was important to you. You’re not the only one who misses him.” Which again, would have been lovely if we’d actually seen evidence of her knowing Wendell, hanging out with Wendell
Ellen: Yeah, we haven’t seen her meet him or anything.
We’ve [00:27:00] just seen her-
Bex: We, we did see- …
Ellen: give her a hug at the s- like in his first scene
Bex: Yeah, we’ve seen them interact, but we’re, we’ve got the context for Bobby and Wendell. We kinda don’t have the context for Athena and Wendell.
Alice: And I just don’t care.
Bex: And we just don’t care. Um, back to Buck’s loft we go then. Um, where Buck has a couch finally, again.
Alice: Yay. Again. That’s, yep.
Bex: But he, um, he can’t sleep on it. Mostly because as soon as he tries to lay down on the couch to take a nap, there’s a knock on the door.
Ellen: Oh, yeah. No sleeping.
Bex: Nope.
Alice: No sleep for the wicked. No.
Ellen: Hen is at the door. She just beats at the door until he comes to open it.
Alice: Oh my God, literally. Like, there’s no, it’s just-
Bex: And then just-
Alice: And she’s still knocking when he opens the door and he- Yeah … she’s like, “Oh, were you trying to sleep?” It’s, and he’s like, “Yep, sure, yep. Nope, it’s fine. Whatever.”
Bex: So she invites herself in for [00:28:00] some of, uh, Maddie’s pot roast.
Alice: She does.
Ellen: Well, I think then we find out that M- Maddie sent her there to keep him occupied, right?
Bex: Um, no, not just yet.
Alice: We don’t find out. Yeah, like
Bex: it’s- So they start talking about, um, pot roast which then leads to discussions of crockpots and whether crockpots are like fad, um, kitchen appliances that nobody ever uses which leads to-
Alice: Absolutely not
Bex: … a discussion of- Yeah … fondue pots, which is what Hen thinks Buck is actually talking about because crockpots are incredibly useful. Fondue pots, really not, even though she and Hen got four of them at her wedding, which is how Buck ended up with one of them because Hen’s been trying to surreptitiously re-gift them to everyone-
Alice: Yeah, Hen’s been re-gifting them
Bex: … to get them out of her house. Um, so Buck takes all this conversation in stride and then asks whether he passed the Dr. Wilson follow-up exam. Um, and I do like this bit, it’s very cute, because he says, “You do need to check my [00:29:00] pulse while you’re here.” And Hen’s like, “You know what? I should,” and she reaches out two fingers as if she’s gonna touch, um, Buck’s carotid to catch his pulse, and then uses those two fingers to smack him upside the head.
Alice: That’s actually great. But the sound effect is so, like, like slap.
Bex: She smacked him hard.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: If the Foley artists are anything to go by.
Ellen: Yep. And he’s just like, “What was that for?” Um, and it’s for ungratefulness.
Alice: It is apparently.
Ellen: So, okay. Fine.
Bex: So all, all we find out in this scene is that, um, Buck’s cardiologist keeps making him do more tests.
Ellen: Mm-hmm.
Bex: He doesn’t know what the results of the tests are or why the tests are being run, just tests
Ellen: He tells Hen that he, he feels fine. Like he doesn’t think it’s bad news but, um, but he also felt pretty good right before he [00:30:00] got struck by lightning, so.
Alice: Which is a weird comparison because like of course you’re gonna feel fine before you have an accident.
Like that’s, that’s how-
Bex: Yeah
Alice: … it wor- Like you’re not gonna be like, “Geez, I really feel unwell. I hope I don’t get struck by lightning.” It’s like yeah, that’s, what? Hmm. Sure. Anyway.
Bex: I mean, I, I guess if you’re trying to parse out what the writers were thinking when they wrote that line it’s that, you know, he’s, he’s trying to equate it with you just, you don’t know when something bad is gonna happen.
Like he feels fine right now but like is the next second the, another equivalent of being struck by lightning is gonna happen and he’s gonna drop dead again. He can’t tell because he, he feels fine. Yeah. But yeah, it’s, it’s a clunky, it’s clunky writing when you have to actually sit down and sort of think about it
Alice: I wasn’t even trying to think about it. It was just-
Bex: Yeah …
Alice: weird.
Bex: No. Um, so-
Ellen: Oh, more flashbacks
Bex: … [00:31:00] we go to commercial. We come back, it’s December 2018. We are not going to see Santa with Buck and Eddie and Chris. Unfortunately, um, we are instead going to an AA meeting where Wendell is trying to talk Bobby out of marrying Athena. Because we we’re at that stage where he’s told, where this is Bobby has just sort of started dating Athena.
And B- and Wendell is like, “I wanted you to go out and fuck somebody, not get married.”
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Well, sure, I guess. And he’s like, “Don’t worry, we’re still doing that.”
Bex: Like, ew.
Ellen: It’s like, okay, that’s too much information.
Alice: Like that’s our parents.
Bex: The, um, the, the concern comes from the fact that, um, they haven’t even been together a year. Bobby asking Athena to marry him is impulsive, and acting impulsively is dangerous for people like us.
Alice: Yeah. [00:32:00] Like, um- It- it is, um, one of the steps of, like, rehab is that you’re not supposed to make big life things-
Bex: Mm-hmm
Alice: for a certain amount of time. Um- Yep … and Bobby’s like, “Hey, Athena, we should get married.” Wendell’s like, “Maybe not though, but sure, whatever.”
Bex: Bobby’s like, “But, but you, you need to meet her because, like, you’re gonna meet her and you’re gonna understand how she makes me feel.” And Wendell’s like, “Like you’re flying high.” bobby’s like, “No.”
Alice: Yeah, like I’ve grounded.
Bex: Like I have … I’m standing on solid ground after having nothing to hold onto. I’ve found her and I’ve maybe found a piece of myself again. Which I think is even more dangerous.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Because he’s putting-
Alice: Like don’t tether yourself to, yeah
Bex: … and if something went wrong in that relationship, does it- Yep like is it gonna send him crashing down again?
Alice: Yep. Maybe.
Bex: Wendell is, is, I mean, we’re now in 2024. In hindsight we know that it works out and it’s actually a really good thing and, like, Bathena forever. Um, but [00:33:00] y- I can see where Wendell is coming from.
Alice: Yeah, I don’t blame Wendell at all. Even though he’s, you know, dead and we don’t care about him.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: What, he is starting to grow on you? After the fact?
Bex: He makes Bobby promise that it’ll be a long engagement, and Bobby’s face is just like, “Yeah, I, I make no promises.” I can’t even remember how long the engagement was because it was that long.
Alice: I was about to say I don’t even remember. Yeah.
Ellen: No. All right. So in the future, I mean in the past, but 2024 the present for the sake of today. Um, so Athena is still trying to find out What, like whether he actually bought a camera. Um, but when the tech guys… Okay, so this is, so she’s been talking to the tech guys at LAPD, and I thought earlier when she was mentioning tech [00:34:00] guys that she was gonna talk with, I thought she was talking about the people at the electronics shop.
But no- Yeah. Oh, no, no … the tech guys are the LAPD people.
Bex: Oh, yeah. I always thought that she meant she was gonna call in favors and get some of the t- the LAPD tech guys to help her.
Ellen: Okay. Well, anyway, apparently they didn’t find a camera on Wendell when, when they found his body.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: So-
Alice: Not even, like melted camera plastic that would appear to be a camera.
Um, guys, I finished my first Sudoku.
Ellen: I’m so proud of you.
Bex: Congratulations.
Ellen: Now put it away.
Bex: Put the phone down
Alice: I swear it’s h- Focus … I’m doing this on the computer, thank you. Um, it’s actually helping me focus, not gonna lie.
Bex: Okay.
Ellen: Oh, that’s good. All right.
Bex: All right. Yes, so no camera on Wendell. That means the camera must be somewhere in the rehab facility.
Alice: If he even brought a camera, which is still new. I
Ellen: mean, they’re, they’re still, like, you know, assuming a lot.
Bex: Massive [00:35:00] assumptions.
Ellen: They don’t know any of this for sure. But anyway, yes.
Bex: Yep.
Ellen: Maybe if it’s small enough, something that could be disguised as something else, they might not even know it was there.
So the wheels are turning in Bobby’s head. But first we’ll go back to Buck, and there’s more knocks on the door. At least this person doesn’t knock the door down before Bu- Buck even gets to it. But, um, it’s Connor.
Bex: Well, that’s because I don’t think Connor was sent to check up on Buck.
Alice: Connor was not sent.
Bex: He’s, he’s there sort of of his own accord, and therefore is not under instruction to bang the door down until Buck answers in order to make sure that Buck is okay. Yeah. He’s just there as a … He’s slightly concerned because Buck has been incommunicado for a couple of days, which we learned was because Dr. Salazar told him he couldn’t use his phone because he had some kind of fancy heart rate monitor on for a couple of days for some sort of test.
Alice: Which, yeah, sure.
Bex: Mm.
Alice: Like, I’ve had heart monitors, but yeah, haven’t had to not [00:36:00] use my phone, but sure. Just have to not shower, which is a real pain in the ass when they do the 24-hour one, because it’s like, “No,” but like I feel grimy.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Um, but so he’s come to check on Buck and brought brownies. And Buck says “not the special kind of brownies Kyle’s mom used to make,” and I went down a completely different train of thought when he mentioned special brownies. Yeah, it-
Ellen: Yeah, me too.
Alice: Yep.
Ellen: I was like, “Why is someone’s mom making-“
Alice: Um, no, it turns out these ones just had extra fiber. And it was like, oh, yep, okay, never mind. Yep, we’re good.
Ellen: Yeah. I was like, “Why is someone’s mom making pot brownies for them?” It’s like, hmm. Okay.
Bex: Not gonna lie, fiber brownies would actually be, I mean, that’s not bad. Everybody needs more fiber.
Ellen: Yeah. Um. They’re just not the kind of special brownies that we thought he was talking about.
Bex: Yeah. No. So Buck checks in with Connor about how Cameron is going. Um, and he’s, he’s not really [00:37:00] as excited as sort of Buck expects.
Ellen: Yeah, this is a weird kind of reaction. But she’s got energy. Yeah, it’s kind of- She’s got more energy than he was expecting, I think. And it doesn’t quite feel real.
Bex: Yes. Yeah. He, he’s sort of trying to play it off as, you know, when you’re, you’re hoping for something for so long and it finally happens, like your expectations are met.
It, it doesn’t quite feel real, so. Um- But just as they start sort of getting into a conversation, there is another knock on the door. And one of those, like, pounding on the doors until Buck actually answers it. Yeah. Um, and it’s Josh, and he brought Sudoku.
Ellen: Yay.
Alice: Oh, that’s why we got into Sudoku.
Bex: That’s why we got into Sudoku.
Ellen: Yeah. I like how Buck was like, he was waiting for the all clear to resume his life, and Connor’s like, “Oh, is all this rest and relaxation starting to [00:38:00] get to you?” And then the, the door starts knocking.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: And Buck’s like, “Um, there’s been less of that than you might think.” Yeah
Poor Buck. So yeah,
Bex: um- Josh, um-
Ellen: Josh is there
Bex: … so Josh is at the door. He looks past Buck and sees Connor, and he’s like, “Oh, did I get my time wrong?”
Alice: Which confirms Buck’s suspicions.
Bex: And Buck’s just like, “I don’t know. What time did Maddie tell you to get here?” And Josh is like, “Oh shit, busted.”
He still goes in to, like, hang out with Buck. Um, but then he must, like, immediately leave and then call Maddie apologizing profusely for spoiling her plan.
Ellen: So here we get the one scene with Chim.
Bex: And Maddie. We get the, the one scene with Chim where Maddie comes home. She’s telling Josh it’s fine, Buck was already onto her.
He didn’t ruin anything. Thank you for coming to check up. Chim hears the, um, the tail end, end of that conversation [00:39:00] and says, “Let me guess, Operation Buck Up Buttercup has been blown.”
Ellen: He was suspicious of the pot roast.
Alice: Um, but yeah, Maddie says he was sus- s- suspicious of the pot roast, but he figured it out by sudoku.
And Chim’s like, “Because as much as I like making fun of your brother, he’s not an actual idiot.” It’s like naw, that’s kinda nice. Yeah. Like it, they’ve got a very brotherly relationship, those two. Um, but yeah-
Bex: They do
Alice: … that’s good news because Chim knows that Maddie’s worried about him doing too much too fast, but Chim thinks that he’s actually taking his recovery seriously.
And then yeah, Chim, for some reason, has a fondue set that Hen dropped off, and he, no he doesn’t know why.
Bex: But then Maddie’s-
Alice: It’s like she was like, “Fuck the tray, I’ve still got two of those things at home. Fuck’s sake.”
Bex: But then it’s like I’ve still got two of those things. Wait, Maddie and Chim just moved into a new house. They need a housewarming present.
Alice: Yeah. They need a fondue set for sure.
Bex: This is a perfect opportunity to get rid of another one.
Ellen: I’ve, there [00:40:00] was like a real, like o- obviously they’re from like the ’70s or whatever, they were really big then, but, um, there w- there was like a resurgence of, of fondue popularity in like the ’90s, and I think-
Bex: It’s cyclical. It just comes back around every couple of years.
Ellen: Yeah, I mean, fondue is fantastic, but it’s, it’s like so much mess. Like really difficult to make and difficult to clean up. But, um, so I-
Alice: Yeah, the cleaning up bit was always a pain in the ass …
Ellen: I, I have at least two, I have, I probably got one, at least one of them for a wedding present as well, and it’s still in the cupboard somewhere.
Bex: I did see-
Ellen: And but one of them when we moved house I did get rid of one. So yeah, they do, they do get- You know, pushed to the back of a cupboard and never used again.
Alice: Yep.
Bex: I did see a TikTok of someone doing a, like a modern spin on the fondue, which is, like it was a pasta fondue. So they had the fondue in the middle and surrounding it was just like meatballs in marinara sauce.
Oh my God. Whoa. So you would get like the meatball, dip it in marinara sauce, then dip it in the hot cheese. Nice. [00:41:00] I thought that sounded brilliant.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Um, anyway, so while Maddie is distracted from the fondue pot and all of those possibilities because she gets a notification on her phone from Julie Rosen.
I’m really c- I’m really happy Julie keeps popping up since they introduced her. Yeah. Um, she and some of the guys from the 118 were supposed to take dinner to Buck, but he’s not home, and he left a note saying, “Tell Maddie I went out.”
He’s on the lam.
Ellen: He’s on the lam, and he’s on the lam at Eddie’s house.
Bex: Yeah, he didn’t go far. He went straight to Eddie’s house.
Ellen: Aw.
Alice: He did go straight to Eddie’s house. It’s cute.
Bex: It is. It is so cute.
Ellen: This is one of those scenes where I’ve, I’ve seen this before, like in edits, like-
Bex: Edits. Yeah. Yeah …
Ellen: Buck opens the door and E- I’m sorry, Eddie opens the door and Buck just pushes past him and I’m like, “Oh, I’ve seen that scene before.” [00:42:00] it’s so cute.
Bex: It is. So he pushes past Eddie, immediately makes himself comfortable on the couch. Um, Eddie asks him, “Do you want a beer?” Buck’s like, “Probably more than one.” Eddie’s like, “Cool, I’m gonna go grab beers.” In the like 10 seconds it takes him to walk to the kitchen, grab the beers and come back, Buck is passed out on the couch.
Alice: Yeah, fallen asleep-
Bex: Dead to the world …
Alice: completely on the couch.
Ellen: Don’t know where Chris is. I wonder if it’s a school day.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: I don’t know. In his room making no noise and pretending he doesn’t exist?
Ellen: Something
Alice: like
Ellen: that. I guess so. With a bunny bang.
Bex: On one of the endless sleepovers that fanfic writers send him on.
Ellen: So Eddie does what any, um, one would do and drinks both of the beers that he just opened.
Bex: To be-
Ellen: Why not?
Bex: To be fair, he’d opened both of them. They’re just gonna go flat.
Alice: Yeah. Yeah. [00:43:00]
Ellen: What was he supposed to do? Well, he could’ve put it back in the fridge and…
Bex: But then it’d go flat. But then- No one wants to drink flat beer.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: I mean, American beer is piss weak, so it’s not really g- that big a deal if he drinks both of them.
Ellen: So Bobby gets a phone call, and it turns out it’s Tamara, who is sounding very high
Alice: For reasons. How did he, how did Tamara get his number? Did they exchange it? I don’t think they did.
Bex: Well, w- I mean, we flash forward, like when we get to the end of the episode, we get the flashback which explains that Carrie, who’s obviously done digging into Bobby, has his number, and she calls for Tamara and forces the phone into Tamara’s hand.
Um, but yes, at this stage, Bobby would’ve been going, “How the hell did Tamara get my number?” Also, it comes up on his phone as Winding Path Residence.
Alice: Yeah, how much has he been stalking these people that he has the number saved? ‘Cause I don’t even have half my coworkers’ numbers saved.
Bex: I don’t think it’s numbers saved. I think it’s that thing that [00:44:00] if you register your phone number, it automatically comes up.
Alice: Oh, yeah.
Bex: Like my doc-
Ellen: Yes, like a caller ID
Bex: … my doctors will call me. Yeah. Yeah. Like some businesses will call you, and the business name will automatically come up on your mobile phone, whether you’ve got- I can’t under- the number saved in your phone or not.
Ellen: Yeah. I’m also impressed that all she said was “Hi,” and he recognized that it was her.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: Like he said, “Hi,” and he’s like, “Tamara, is that you?”
Alice: I mean, I guess because who else would be calling, like who else would be calling from the rehab center? ‘Cause Wen- it’s sure not Wendell.
Bex: Well, he, he, he’s made quite an impression on the, um, the receptionist. Maybe she’s calling. But no, it is Tamara, and, uh, she’s sounding a little strung out.
Ellen: And he- she’s like, “Please don’t, please don’t be mad at me. I feel like everyone’s always mad at me.” It’s like, Oh, bless.
Bex: Yeah. So she, she kind of goes off on these weird little tangents like, you know, um, “Wendell was nice. Maybe that’s, that’s, maybe that’s why you guys were friends. I don’t have any friends. Wendell was my [00:45:00] friend, but now he’s dead.”
Ellen: Mm-hmm.
Bex: Bobby’s like, “Okay.” Um-
Alice: Uh, sure
Bex: … but what really catches his attention is towards the end of the phone call, she just keeps, she says that she’s so tired, and that reminds him of the voicemail that he got from Wendell where Wendell was saying, “I’m so tired.” so-
Alice: Oh, I’m glad you pieced that together, ’cause I did not remember that at all.
Ellen: Well, they flash back to it.
Bex: Well, they literally show, they literally show the flashback of him listening to the voicemail.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. So there was no missing, unle- unless you were not paying attention.
Alice: The I, I absolutely was not-
Ellen: Which is, which is fair
Alice: I mean, yeah, I was, I was wa- like I was watching so hard, um, yep.
Ellen: You just completely missed it.
Alice: Watching real hard, you guys.
Bex: Um, so Bobby’s gone, “Okay, f- fuck this. I’m gonna go and get Tamara. She’s in trouble.” Uh, jumps in the car. At least he calls Athena and says that he’s [00:46:00] going to help her before he storms off. So, like, he’s reckless-
Alice: Yeah, someone knew where he was
Bex: … but he’s at least checking in. Yeah I will say that as much as I don’t like the Bobby storyline in this episode, I do appreciate it that we keep going back and forth so we only have to deal with like five or 10 minutes of Bobby before we cut back to Buck.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: It’s not like a long stretch of Bobby that we have to handle. You’re just like, “Okay, I’ve just got to hold on for another couple of minutes then go back to Buck.
Alice: To go back to Buck.
Ellen: I actually found the switching back and forth really annoying because the-
Alice: It was really annoying
Ellen: … the Buck storyline was so, like, kind of a calm kind of, um, you know, develops quite slowly. And everything that B- that Bobby is doing is like really frantic by the time that, you know, it, as we go on it gets more and more frantic. So the tone shift was really jarring at so- at certain times.
Bex: I mean, there’s also that too. I just, it was nice to… [00:47:00] I think talking about it now, like I like that we only have to talk about Bobby for a few minutes and then we get to go… we get to talk about Buck again.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Um, but yes, it w- it was, actually watching it, the constant cutting backwards and forwards could be a little bit of an annoyance.
Ellen: Mm-hmm
Bex: So having said that, of course, we’re cutting back to Buck-
Ellen: Yeah
Bex: who wakes up on Eddie’s couch like, “Where the fuck am I? What the fuck just happened?” And goes to find Eddie, who’s in the kitchen making Christopher’s lunch.
Alice: Or breakfast, who knows?
Bex: No, there’s a lunchbox out on the, um, the table-
Alice: Oh, so breakfast-
Bex: … and he’s like making sandwiches … for school.
Alice: Yeah, okay. That makes sense.
Bex: He’s making lunch for school the next day.
Alice: I’m like, “How fucking long did Buck sleep?” But no. Yeah, that makes sense.
Bex: No. Um, so Eddie asks if he wants the beer. Buck’s like, “Mm, maybe not, but you can have a [00:48:00] beer.” And Eddie’s like, “Nah, I drank them. I drank both of them.” But you can have some water. That’s fine. And then we get to the, uh, like the deep and meaningful conversation part of the scene where Buck asks Eddie what he remembers about getting shot.
And Eddie’s says, well, all that he can remember is the pain and then everything went dark and I thought this is it and then I woke up in hospital And Buck’s like, “That’s it? I get a full-on coma hallucination and you’re just like everything goes dark and then you wake up in the hospital?”
Alice: Not only that though, this means that Eddie does not remember Buck-
Bex: Buck picking him up and throwing him into the truck?
Alice: Yep. Buck picking him up, Buck covered in blood, Buck trying to save his life. He remembers none of that.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Mm-hmm.
Ellen: I hope someone told him about it. [00:49:00]
Bex: But who would be there to tell him? It was just, like, him, Eddie and the, um, um, the captain of the 133. Mm, yeah. But which I don’t really think would be g- like going over for beers anytime soon.
Ellen: Well, do we think it’s likely that Buck told him anything about it?
Bex: No. No.
Ellen: Hmm, someone needs to write a fic about this.
Alice: I’m sure. Oh, they’re, yeah, I’m sure they have.
Ellen: Eddie’s like, “So now am I allowed to ask how you are now that you’re asking all these deep conversa- like, you know-
Alice: Weird questions
Ellen: … deep questions?”
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: And s- Buck says he doesn’t, he doesn’t know. And, and Buck has s- uh, In- Eddie has a interesting, like, reply to all of this. He’s like, “You died. You’re gonna feel a lot of different ways about that and sometimes all at the same time.”
And he’s telling Buck this with such a fond look on his face. It’s really sweet. Yeah. Even though it’s so deep. [00:50:00] Um, “the best way to process it is to allow yourself to feel it.”
Bex: Which I call bullshit because Edmundo Diaz does not let himself feel anything. No. He is- He bottles everything up until he explodes
Ellen: Yeah. He’s very good at brushing everything under the carpet.
Alice: Yes.
Bex: It’s, it’s … This is very much a do as I say and not as I do situation. Like, I’m telling you-
Alice: 100%, yeah
Bex: … to allow yourself to feel it. I personally do n- will not feel it.
Alice: I will never feel it. Yep. Um-
Bex: I will not process it, but I want you to.
Alice: Cannot make me feel it, but you should probably feel it.
Bex: But he does have a, um … Like, his final line is that, uh, when Buck is asking like, “Eventually you process it, right?” And Eddie’s like, “You know, every day you open your eyes in the morning and you’re a little less surprised that the world is still there,” which is very sad.
Ellen: Hmm. All right. We go from this very- This is one of the, the, the scene shifts where I was like, “Whoa, [00:51:00] okay. Wait. It’s
Bex: whiplash here.” Yeah, ’cause you go from, like, Buck and Eddie looking at each other fondly, talking about their feel- or talking about Buck’s feelings, ’cause Eddie doesn’t allow himself feelings.
Um, and then you get the, the beating drums of urgency as Bobby is racing down the streets after Tamara. Yeah. Okay.
Ellen: Yep. He barges into-
Alice: Oh, God. Who I also don’t care about
Ellen: … barges into the, um, rehab and-
Bex: Again, how? How is he continuing to get through the door?
Ellen: Well I assume the door’s open
Alice: They’ve just left it unlocked for him. Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. I, I’d think they would hire more security after all this storming in that Bobby likes to do, but anyway.
Bex: Yes, exactly.
Ellen: The, this poor receptionist lady is like, “Look, I can’t just let you in. Will you go away?” And Bobby’s like, “I … Tamara asked me to pick her up.” And, um, then Carrie appears, the lady who’s one of the owners, and she’s not gonna let Bobby in to see her For, [00:52:00] for reasons that we find out shortly.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Uh, Trey, who’s the, who’s her husband, is coming out as well, so they’re all yelling at Bobby, and Bobby’s yelling for Tamara, and it’s all very dramatic for a moment.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: Um, Carrie’s like, “Is this how you spend, like to spend your time, terrorizing young women?” And Bobby just gives her this look like, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Like, uh, he doesn’t realize how it looks, I don’t think. She’s like, uh, he’s like, “I don’t give a shit about any of this anymore,” and he just tries to go in. Trey tr- tries to get in his way, and Bobby just thumps him.
Alice: Literally just pu- like, throws a punch immediately.
Bex: Yep.
Alice: Like- Mm-hmm … fuck off, mate
Bex: So Carrie calls 9-1-1, reporting that they have a, um, intruder and also an assault in progress. The receptionist hits the panic button, which, hidden under the reception desk, which then triggers a building-wide siren. [00:53:00]
Alice: Yeah, like panic buttons don’t typically work like this. Normally they-
Bex: They’re, they’re-
Alice: … are just a very quiet call
Bex: They’re normally silent alarms, right?
Alice: So yeah.
Ellen: Yeah, they, they call the authorities, don’t they? Like-
Alice: Yeah …
Ellen: call the police.
Bex: The whole point is that you hit them and they alert somebody, but they don’t alert the person that you’re calling the alarm for to the fact that you’ve alerted somebody.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: But no, in this one it’s a, like all hands on deck panic stations. Which adds to the chaos of the situation because now you’ve got this klaxon wailing in the background as Bobby is running through the building trying to find Tamara, but the klaxon has alerted all the residents who are now coming out of their rooms and getting in Bobby’s way and he’s like having to, he’s sort of grabbing them and staring them in the face like, “Do you know Tamara? Where is Tamara?” And they’re all like half asleep or possibly strung out as well. Um-
Ellen: And, and now he’s like trying to actually check every single room to try and find her. I’m like, “Oh, this is not, this is not-
Alice: Yeah, this is weird
Ellen: … the most efficient way to do this.”
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: But eventually he does find her, like it works.
Bex: Rather quickly. Yeah. [00:54:00] Yes, it works. He finds her. Um, he finds her in an office on the floor. There’s a very obvious injection site on her inner arm and a, a hypodermic needle on the floor next to her. And she’s still like semi-conscious ’cause she’s, she recognizes that Bobby has come and she’s like, um, “Carrie said that you would come, but I didn’t believe her.”
So he, this whole next scene I’m just so annoyed because he picks her up and I’m watching how he picks her up. I’m going, “Dude, don’t you get trained on how to pick people up?”
Alice: Literally, he’s a firefighter.
Bex: Because Tamara is a dead weight at this point, and the way that Bobby picks her up-
Ellen: Well, he tries to put her back to her feet, but she’s not standing up on her own, like-
Bex: Yes
Ellen: she’s passed out almost, so.
Bex: Well, he, he tries to pick her up and he’s trying to take her out of the room, and [00:55:00] then when, and, um, Tamara lets it slip that the room that they’re in is the room that Wendell died in. So Bobby’s like, “Nope, okay, change of plans. We’re staying.” Um-
Ellen: Yeah. …
Bex: even though there is an alarm going off, um, Carrie has called 9-1-1, I’m going to take precious time to search the room to try and find the hidden camera even though I have no idea what I am looking for or where to look for it.
Alice: Yep. Yeah.
Bex: Um, so he does that, and Tamara sort of is then s- just sitting in the, the chair and goes, “Huh, I think someone burnt the toast again.” Bobby’s like, “What the hell?”
Alice: Like, is she now having a stroke?
Bex: Goes out to check the hallway. The hallway is fully engulfed.
Alice: Yeah, there’s a fire for reasons.
Bex: Yes. Um, Tamara’s, Tamara is hilarious ’cause Bobby’s like, “Tamara, the building’s on fire,” and Tamara’s like, “Why is it always fire with them?”[00:56:00]
Alice: Oh, literally.
Bex: So then- Yeah … Bobby picks her up and he’s trying to drag her. And, and he does this weird sort of s- he gets her to a, a side door and does, like, this weird sideways princess carry, which number one, that is not how you were trained to pick people up. Number two, dude, you have a back injury.
Which I know the show doesn’t like to talk about because, you know, it ties back to the whole why Bobby became an addict, because he has a back injury. You should not be carrying people like that. You’re gonna hurt yourself.
Alice: Your knees, mate. Your knees.
Ellen: The bottom line is he get, does get her outside and to someone, like paramedics.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: Um, you know, smoke inhalation and narcotic use, please treat her for. And meanwhile, um, Carrie has decided that her best bet is to just yell and point at him and throw accusations. He pushed his way in and attacked my husband [00:57:00] and said that he would make us all pay.
Alice: I mean, he did. He didn’t say that.
Ellen: No, I mean, he did barge his way in and yeah.
Alice: Attacked Trey.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: And, and then he started the fire apparently, and Bobby’s like, “That is, that is a lie.” But at least the receptionist says the, says the truth, that he’s been there before and harassed her.
Bex: And, and he’s like- Like, the receptionist is like- “… Okay” … “He’s been here before,” and Bobby’s like, “Well, yeah, okay, I did do that, but I didn’t set the fire.”
Alice: Yeah. Yeah. Um- Like, I broke in, I punched her husband, but I didn’t set the fire, okay?
Bex: It’s always been burning since the world’s been turning. Um, they point out Bobby’s truck, and one of the, um, LAPD officers goes over to check it, and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a gas can sitting in the back of the truck.
Ellen: Oh, how convenient.
Bex: And then if that’s not even, [00:58:00] that’s, that’s not the worst thing, ’cause apparently he has a history of setting fires. This is what, that’s what Bobby does. He sets suspicious fires. His family died in a suspicious fire.
Alice: Mm-hmm.
Ellen: Ugh.
Bex: And at this point Bobby is looking at her going, “I severely underestimated you.”
Ellen: Yeah, this woman is an absolute psychopath. But, like, I think Alice, you were saying these guys were so over the top. It was very-
Alice: It was so cartoon villain …
Ellen: well, it was evil villain. Yeah.
Alice: Like, they were basically, like, staring Bobby in the eye and they’re like, “Yeah, there was a suspicious fire.”
Bex: If Carrie had a mustache she’d be twirling it.
Alice: Yeah, and like they’ve put gasoline in the flatbed of his truck. Um, but yeah, she’s literally, like, Carrie’s staring at Bobby. She’s like, “He has a history. His family died in very suspicious fire circumstances in Minnesota. This is what he does.” And Bobby’s just like, “What the fuck are you talk-…” Like it was just, it [00:59:00] was, it was so cartoony Like there’s nothing about them that, there’s nothing about them that redeems them at all
Ellen: Oh, no
Alice: Like normally with a villain, like you wanna see, you like, okay, like I understand where they’re co- But these people are literally just killing people for money and it’s like, oh, okay, that’s cool, I guess
Bex: You kinda don’t wanna redeem them. You want them to be evil
Alice: Yeah, but I just don’t care
Ellen: It makes the-
Bex: No …
Ellen: the, the whole episode a lot less like, I mean none of this is kind of believable in the first place, but it’s like less believable I suppose, if they’re completely irredeemable. But the ne- the next scene really annoyed me because this, this, um, detective who is trying to, I don’t even know, like i- I thought she was a lawyer to start with, but no, she’s the actual police detective who’s working on this
Bex: She, she’s a detective, yeah
Ellen: So, and she’s just really smugly telling him [01:00:00] all of the things that she’s, you know, discovered about what happened. You know, they’ve got witnesses, they’re happy to provide a, you know, statements about what happened, and the word stalking was used several times by multiple people. It’s like, yeah, well, actually a lot of that’s true anyway. But yeah, Bobby just doesn’t say anything
Bex: But it, it’s not just that Bobby doesn’t say anything. I think it would actually go better for him if he said something, because he could just like repeat, “I want a lawyer. No comment.” Instead, he’s rolling his eyes, he’s flinging himself around in his chair in disgust, and he is the most dramatic petty bitch without saying a single word. And like I understand that they had to do it because honestly, it, the scene would’ve been, wouldn’t have been as interesting or as compelling to watch if he, if Peter Krause had just sat there stone faced.
Because this detective, the actress is not sucking me in with this performance. I w-
She’s was insufferable
… I was just not paying attention to [01:01:00] her She’s horrible I was watching Peter because he was more entertaining with his performance than she was with her, and she was the one that had the whole monologue that she had to recite
Alice: I mean, the detective is, um, from The Shield, and so I spent this entire scene, like I have no fucking idea what she was saying ’cause I was like, “How do I know her? Where is she from?” Um, she’s in The Shield as a detect- like she’s a cop in the, The Shield, so apparently she’s like got a very specific type cast of being a cop
Ellen: Yeah. Mm-hmm
Alice: Um, which just reminded me of Joey Tribbiani in Friends when he gets fired off Days Of Our Lives Um, he, like, goes on a audition for a cab driver and he’s like, “Oh, like, if we drive past an accident on the way, I can, um, I can help the victims ’cause I have a background in medical acting.”
Like, he’s a doctor. And it’s just like this woman, she’s like, “Oh, a detective. Yeah, I’ve got a background in being a detective. I know all the, the lingo. I can do this.”
Ellen: Yeah, and well, eventually she says that, “Oh, you know, we’re [01:02:00] gonna, we’re gonna get, they’re gonna pronounce you guilty before they even, the, the jury is gonna leave the box. But, um, I don’t like this perfect trail of breadcrumbs. It’s, it’s dodgy, basically.”
Bex: It’s like a one-woman good cop, bad cop. Yeah. She’s pl- she’s played bad cop and didn’t get a single thing out of Bobby, but then she turns it on her head and goes good cop and she’s like, “Um, I think there’s more to the story.”
Ellen: Yeah, like in, like in The Lego Movie where that guy’s got the face that, like, turns around.
Bex: Yes. Just spins around. Um-
Alice: Oh my God, yes
Ellen: … her face turns around and she’s like- She’s try- … “Except I think that if you tell me what happened there might be more to the story.” Yes. “So then we can-
Bex: Yes
Ellen: … get you off again.” so to speak.
Bex: Which in any other instances would be trying to lull Bobby into a false sense of security so he could give a statement that could be used against him in a court of law. Um, but that’s not this story. This detective actually does believe him. So all Bobby says at this point is, [01:03:00] “I n- I have someone I need you to call.”
And I’m like, dude, Athena is already there. The booking sergeant saw you walk in and immediately called somebody, who called somebody, who called Athena, and she just raced down to that precinct to find you. You don’t-
Alice: Yeah …
Bex: Bobby Nash does not get either arrested or dragged in for questioning without Athena Grant knowing about it.
Alice: Oh, I’m pretty sure Bobby has a tracker under his skin, and every time he goes near a police station Athena gets a phone call.
Bex: And she got that idea from the tracker that Bobby put on Buck. Every time Buck gets near a hospital, Bobby is alerted.
Alice: Buck’s having something he’s allergic to, quick.
Ellen: It, it doesn’t help that, like, e- even if Athena wasn’t already at the station, um, that this, this sound, sound effect or noise in the music plays and she, like, spawns in, in the room. Just appears. And, um-
Bex: You mention her name and she’s just immediately there.
Ellen: Yeah. [01:04:00]
Bex: Um, and she’s been shopping on Amazon, and she found the exact camera that, um-
Alice: Somehow
Bex: … Wendell purchased. Um, which ver- which has in its product image very helpfully shows you where the camera should be placed, which is inside the plate on top of a powerpoint
Ellen: The only trouble is, um, the house is kind of burnt down, but that doesn’t matter because they still found it.
Alice: Yeah, somehow they found it.
Bex: They, well, I’m guessing that Phelps called the arson investigator and said, “Hey, I need you to check the power points.” So he’s checked the power points and he’s found the camera. And I’m guessing that this makes Phelps feel warm and fuzzy towards Athena because she’s allowed Athena to tag along with her to the hospital to go question Tamara.
And yes, that is the spin that I’m putting on it and not just that Athena has barged her way into an investigation. [01:05:00] Athena is inserting herself
Ellen: into- Yeah. Like she does. She has done- she’s got a history of doing this. But yeah, okay.
Bex: But she should not be doing this because her husband is implicated in all of this. Yeah. She should be kept very, very far away from this investigation, but she’s been cooperating and providing evidence, so she gets to play. Um, and like this whole next scene is literally just the show telling us the story.
Ellen: Yeah.
Alice: Yeah. It’s, yep.
Ellen: We’ve had these kind of flashbacks before where the, it’s just a info dump of what happened.
Alice: Yeah, it’s just exposition.
Bex: Yeah, like the, the mystery episodes where it’s like a, a, a murder mystery, and then we get to the end and then Buck goes, “But I still don’t understand how it happened.” So then Athena-
Ellen: And then Athena explains everything.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: And they do flash- they do sort of flashbacks to the people doing it as Athena does the voiceover. So that’s what they do here. Tamara’s telling the story of what happened at Wi- at how she met Wendell and what happened at Winding Peaks while she’s in the hospital [01:06:00] bed.
Ellen: And, and perhaps worse in, in, at, on top of this being an info dump, is that we already knew all of this. Like, we didn’t know it probably exactly what happened, but we know, like they’ve al- she’s already told us that Wendell checked himself in to expose them.
We know he got the camera in there. Yep. We know he died from an overdose. Like-
Alice: Yep. But no, apparently we needed to see it.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: And we needed the specific details of how they met, why Wendell decided to go in, how he ended up, um- overdosing, which was because he took drugs that Carrie was trying to force onto Tamara when she caught Tamara and Wendell in the office planting the camera. Um-
Ellen: That’s, it’s such a weird scene. Like, did she, she gave him the drugs, but did she purposely give him, like, too much? Like, how did he end up overdosing out of that? Like, it’s just… I thought it was weird.
Alice: Well, I think because, no, ’cause he never took [01:07:00] IV, like, that was the whole thing. He never took IV drugs.
Bex: Uh, did we know his drug of choice, though? Was he an alcoholic or was he-
Alice: They said it. I feel like he was a, I don’t know, they said it in one of the episodes because I remember them being like, “Oh, well that’s not what he took.”
Bex: Yeah.
Alice: And I don’t remember what else he took.
Ellen: Was he just really unlucky that he happened to shoot up and it killed him?
Like-
Alice: No, like there’s a, most people have a very low tolerance, and so if they, like, but I don’t know why, like, were they watching him?
Bex: No, because
Alice: to make him shoot up with all of it?
Ellen: No, they went out of the room
Bex: … I don’t know because-
Alice: That’s what I thought-
Bex: They went out of the room. And so funnily, like the one thing that bugged me was, well the many things that bugged me.
The, the latest one that bugged me was that, like, Carrie takes Tamara out of the room while Wendell’s shooting up, and apparently in like the 20 seconds that they were out there having that conversation, Wendell managed to shoot up, find his phone, leave a voicemail for Bobby- Yeah … and then die. Oh,
Ellen: yeah.
Alice: And then die. [01:08:00] Yep.
Bex: And then died. Like,
Ellen: and he didn’t tell Bobby any details in his voicemail. He didn’t say-
Bex: And the voicemail was longer w- than the actual scene of Tamara and Carrie out in the hall.
Alice: Literally it’s so, oh my God, it’s so dumb.
Ellen: He didn’t say, “Okay- And like- … I fucked up. Come and get me.”
Alice: Like- Yeah, like I- he didn’t have to do- I don’t, like look, I’m not an expert, but like, and obviously it’s IV so it’s gonna be very quickly. But like he couldn’t just, like if he had the, the thought to cl- call Bobby, it’s like- Yes … “Hey, this is We- “
Ellen: Call 9-1-1? Yeah. Like- Call the police. Yeah. I don’t know.
Bex: Like- I, it’s-
Ellen: Anyway. Yes. Anyway, it happened.
Bex: Any-
Ellen: He didn’t make it. They decided to take his body and burn it as we saw, like, in the other episode.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: And-
Bex: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah
Ellen: … um, and basically Tamara just, we’re told that she saw nothing
Alice: Yep.
Bex: Yes. And this is enough for the police [01:09:00] to arrest Trey and Carrie. They are dragged into the station where they immediately turn on each other.
Alice: They im- yeah, so fast.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, the husband’s like, “It was all her idea. She said we couldn’t make any money running a legitimate rehab center, so the only way we could make money-
Bex: She’s not-
Ellen: … was to keep the people addicted.”
Bex: I mean, she’s not wrong, but this is not how you go about it.
Alice: No.
Ellen: Well, it’s extremely evil.
Alice: It’s so evil.
Bex: Look, we’re not talking about the morality of it. It’s like, um, you know, companies that offer weight loss and, and diets, like, they’re purposefully the programs that they set up, the diets that they create are kind of purposely designed to fail because if you lose weight and are successful in keeping the weight off, you’ll never go back to the program.
But if you lose, if you’re successful and then you put the weight back on, you’ll come back again and again- Yeah … and again and again. Mm-hmm. So, like, from a, [01:10:00] a capitalist perspective, uh, she’s not wrong, but it is, yeah, incredibly evil.
Alice: So, so evil.
Bex: Carrie says that, “No, I was just trying to help people. Trey was the one that got too ambitious.” Trey’s like, “It was all her idea to lure Bobby to the residence,” and we see her making Tamara shoot up and forcing the phone into her hand. Um-
Ellen: Yeah, maybe that part was the only part we didn’t already know about.
Bex: Yeah. And then Carrie’s like, “He told you that? Well, it was his idea to burn the whole building down to claim the insurance money.”
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Sorry.
Alice: They’re literally just pointing fingers immediately.
Bex: Yes. And then we end this by a discover- the detective telling Athena as she walks her to her car after, because Athena has been sitting and watching all of these interviews through the, the observation mirror. Um, the detective [01:11:00] lets Athena know that this wasn’t the first time that these guys have pulled this shit.
They’re different names, but when the police started looking at privately owned rehab centers that can burn to the ground, they found a whole heap. They found a whole series of them. So, um- Mm. They’re gonna go away for a while
Ellen: I mean, good
Bex: I mean, it doesn’t help Wendell, but at least it’ll help other people.
Ellen: Yep.
Bex: So it must be time to go back and check in on Buck.
Alice: Oh, hopefully.
Ellen: Yeah, and his very pretty cardiologist doctor lady.
Bex: The only cardiologist that we ever see-
Ellen: Yeah …
Bex: in Los Angeles. She must be making bank.
Alice: Yeah. Just for the 118, too.
Bex: Yes. Pretty much.
Ellen: Um, and ap- apparently the time for tests is over. All of his tests have come back great, so he can go back to work.
Yeah. But [01:12:00] he’s not, he’s not so sure- He’s like, “Fuck that shit” … that he wants to do that. Like, because he’s-
Bex: Which is really interesting …
Ellen: got PTSD …
Bex: like considering the last time. Well, the last time he got really, really hurt, he was gunning it trying to get back to work as fast as possible.
Ellen: Yeah, but then he like started coughing up blood, so, ’cause he went too hard. So now he’s like, “Oh.”
Bex: What, what version of Buck are we up to? 4.0? This version of Buck knows to take things easily in recovery.
Ellen: Yep.
Bex: But then he starts using Dr. Salazar’s almost like therapist. He’s like, “Cool, physically I’m fine, but I keep having this sense of dread.
Um, and my sister keeps looking at me like I, like she thinks I’m gonna die again.” And Dr. Salazar says, “Well, I can’t help you with that. Maybe go talk to Frank.”
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Please go talk to Frank. I miss Frank.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah, we haven’t seen him in ages. No one’s been having any therapy for, for, for a while.
Alice: Which is [01:13:00] dangerous.
Bex: Not since he sent Eddie on a rampage in his room with a baseball bat.
Ellen: Oh, yeah. Maybe he got fired after that. They’re like, “You, you set Eddie off. Like, we’re not going back to you anymore.”
Bex: Yes. They’re boycotting Frank.
Ellen: Yeah. But Dr. Salazar tells him that, um, “water finds its own level. Everyone finds their equilibrium. You might have to move to another country to work it out.”
Bex: Yeah, ’cause he asks about other patients that she’s had that have had near-death experiences, and she says that, um, almost dying. She’s saying, like, almost dying, but, like, he actually died, so.
Alice: He died, yeah.
Bex: Um, so let, let’s not talk about the almost dying.
Ellen: But he didn’t.
Bex: But the peop- But her patient… No, he did, for three minutes and 17 seconds.
Ellen: But he came back.
Bex: Um, he did come back. Um, but she, she’s says her other patients, um, their near-death experience makes them [01:14:00] appreciate what they have. Um, for others they, uh, they walk out of her office and quit their job or leave their spouse.
Um, and for some reason a lot of them wanna go to Italy.
Alice: Sure.
Ellen: That’s totally understandable. Yeah.
Bex: Very, like, Under the Tuscan Sun, Eat Pray Love-ish.
Ellen: Yeah. Need to find themselves.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: I would happily find myself in Italy.
Alice: Buck’s like, “Well, that’s one place I’ve never been.”
Bex: Yeah, I don’t think he did a lot of Europe, did he?
Alice: No, he just did America.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: Oh, and South America.
Bex: That’s still America. Yeah.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Americas. The Americas.
Ellen: The Americas.
Alice: Yes.
Bex: Yes. Yes. So Buck goes out and sort of staring pensively over a lake, and here’s where I confess that I thought MacArthur Park was just a suburb. I didn’t realize it was an actual fucking park.
Alice: Oh.
Bex: Because- That makes sense … that’s where Buck [01:15:00] is. He’s in the middle of MacArthur Park.
Alice: Yeah, he’s just in a park.
Bex: So any time they go to MacArthur Park they’re called to, I guess, the streets around the park, which is huge.
Ellen: Well, I, I’m guessing the suburb extends out-
Bex: So I learned something
Ellen: … away from the e- uh, edges of the park though, right?
Bex: I don’t know, but I always thought it was just like a name, like MacArthur Park, it was just some wanky name for a suburb, but no, it’s a, an actual-
Alice: It’s an actual park.
Bex: … park. Um, and I realized that for two reasons. One, because, um, I Google imaged MacArthur Park and matched the fountain that Buck is staring out of, and also because after Buck is sort of-
Ellen: Oh! Very detective of you.
Bex: Um, I could go work for Bobby’s detective agency.
Ellen: Yeah, you could. Yeah. Good job.
Bex: Um, my next step is stalking people at flower markets. Um, but also because after Buck has finished staring pensively out across the lake, he starts walking, I’m guessing, back to his car, and he [01:16:00] notices, uh, a sort of, like a, a tall building behind the park that looks a little crispy, and it’s the building that they were called to when he was struck by lightning.
Ellen: Oh, I thought he just went… I thought he went there on purpose. He went back to where it happened so that he could-
Alice: Yeah, that’s what I assumed
Ellen: … ruminate on what had happened. It, there just happened to be the park there.
Bex: Well, that’s, like, that’s how I figured out it was ’cause I remembered that they were called to MacArthur Park. I’m like, “Oh, it’s actually a park.”
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Um, so and ironically, we’ve seen, like when they do the, um, like the clips of LA to pad episodes, there have been so many shots in retrospect of MacArthur Park that I’ve just gone, “Oh, it’s a pretty lake, and a fountain, and a park.” Mm-hmm. It’s just always been the same.
Ellen: Well, now you, um-
Bex: Anyway, that’s enough of Buck apparently
Ellen: you’ve learned something about LA suburbia.
Bex: I have. I have. I’m feeling very edumacated.
Ellen: Yep. MacArthur Park. So [01:17:00] we, but now we’re going to the flower market again.
Bex: ‘Cause Bobby’s stalking Tamara still. Like, dude.
Ellen: Yes.
Bex: It’s over. Leave her alone.
Ellen: Well, she’s happy to see him. She’s like-
Bex: She is …
Ellen: remembers his name and everything. She’s like, “Bobby!”
Alice: Which is, yeah, I, I wouldn’t recognize him, but you know.
Bex: I suppose you remember the faces of those who drag you out of a burning building, even if you’re like high as a kite at the time.
Alice: Yeah, you’d think, but
Ellen: well, she only met him for, well, I guess he was stalking her at the flower market before, so she probably remembers who he is.
But anyway. Um, apparently the, i- she’s now working at the flower market, um, because apparently she goes there so much that they know who she is, and the p- people who own it reached out to her and asked her if she wanted a job. I was like, “Okay, that’s an interesting kind of leap to make, but okay.”
Bex: That’s something that really happens.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Yeah, sure. [01:18:00]
Ellen: As long as she stays clean. So yeah, that’s pretty much it.
Bex: Pretty much. Yep, we’re just checking in. Tamara’s good. Yep. Bobby can move on.
Alice: Yep.
Bex: Excellent. And so can we. Um, we can move on to the murder house, where Buck has gone to see his sister and doesn’t even say hello, just immediately launches into a conversation telling Maddie that she has to try to stop, stop trying to fix him.
Maddie’s like, “Hi, how are you? You wanna do some- Would you like to come in?” Rude. I raised you better than that.
Ellen: She’s like, “I just, I’m just trying to help you.” And Buck’s like, “I, I know you’re trying to help me, but I can take care of myself.” And Maddie’s like, “No, but let me help you, please.”
Bex: But it’s, it’s a really sad, like it’s not just let me help you because I feel bad that you died. It’s let me help you because I remembered when I was sick, [01:19:00] I didn’t ask for help because I didn’t want to be a burden, and then I ended up in Boston, and she doesn’t want him to end up in Boston.
So that sort of clicks for him, so he, he sits, he finally sits down. Um, and I wonder if this scene had more to it, because Buck con- confesses, um, that when he wakes up, he has this checklist that he runs in his head and he lists off first he checks the time of day and then he texts Bobby And then that’s it, and then it cuts to Bobby, but we never come back to Buck to see what is, is on his checklist.
And the, the, the l- the way that Oliver delivers the line, it sounds like there are more sentences to come.
Ellen: Oh.
Bex: But we don’t see what comes next.
Ellen: Yeah, they might have cut that scene short, hey?
Bex: Maybe. I don’t know. I [01:20:00] just got really annoyed ’cause of like, it’s like first I check the time of day. That’s cool ’cause you don’t, ’cause he said it was never nighttime in his dreams.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Um, and then he texts Bobby to make sure Bobby’s okay ’cause if Bobby’s okay then he knows he’s real.
Alice: And then it, like, scrolls across to Bobby and so I was expecting-
Bex: Yes!
Alice: … Buck to, like, keep ta- and no.
Bex: Yes
Alice: We just get Bobby, and I was like,
Bex: oh, they- No …
Alice: have lost interest
Bex: We just go to Bobby. Like, we’re done with Buck.
And, and that’s why I’m thinking was there more to that scene? Was there more to that list? Did they shoot more and then they just went, “Eh, no. Actually, we’re just gonna finish on Bobby. We, it’s gonna ruin the episode if we come back to Buck. It’s a stronger ending to end on Bobby.” Um, which I guess it kind of does because the episode starts with Bobby in AA being the guy in the back of the room that Wendell comes to talk to, and then it ends with Bobby picking up the baton from Wendell and talking to the guy in the back row who doesn’t want to be there.
Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, he even says the same thing, right? He, he says- Yeah … “I’ve been [01:21:00] there,” or whatever. I, “I’ve been where you are right now.”
Bex: So the episode ends with Bobby leading a meeting at AA or speaking in an AA meeting, sort of eulogizing Wendell, saying that it would’ve been his 10-year chip, um, if he’d been alive, noticing the, the really defensive-looking guy in the back row.
Um, and when the meeting goes, meeting ends, he goes and sits down and basically says to this guy what Wendell said to him. And, like, Bobby, like, Peter is doing his best to act the shit out of that monologue.
Alice: Mm.
Bex: And I’m, do not care.
Alice: Yeah, I j- I just don’t care.
Bex: He’s, he is tearing up, the voice is shaking, and I’m just looking at the counter going, “How much more of this episode is there to go?”
Ellen: Yeah, I think we’re, we’ve had enough of the, um, repeating kind of recovering addict storylines, right? To-
Bex: Oh, we have. Has the show had enough? No. No. But we have. [01:22:00]
Ellen: Yeah, so that was that.
Bex: That was that.
Ellen: Af- I, after last week’s episode, it was so good, and I just sort of watched this and went, “Oh.”
Bex: I told you it was all downhill from, um, “In Another Life”.
Alice: Yep.
Ellen: Yeah. I mean, I guess it was a storyline they felt they had to tie up for some reason, but
Bex: It was a storyline they didn’t have to do to start with.
Ellen: No. Yeah.
Bex: But sure, I guess they had to tie it up. Um, I mean, I will say that, like, I hate the Bobby storyline. I just, I’m not interested in it, but I think that this episode did do a better job of setting it up and explaining it and wrapping it up than “Red Flag” did.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: Or to put it another way, “Red Flag” just dumped the storyline on the writers’ table, and then Andrew Meyers has done a very good job of picking up the [01:23:00] crap that was left and crafting it into a decent-
Ellen: Yeah, he like retro- …
Bex: 45 minutes of television
Ellen: … retroactively m- made it a better storyline in a way.
Bex: Yes.
Ellen: Because then we actually find out- Yes … the backstory to most of it and it’s-
Bex: We get, yes, we get the backstory, we get the context, we get the, the flashbacks and the flash-forwards and the, um, the symbolism and the similarities and the cyclical nature and all of that. He did really, he did a good job of making it into a decent story.
Ellen: Mm-hmm.
Bex: Um, still n- didn’t enjoy it.
Alice: No.
Bex: But I recognize that he did a decent job at it
Ellen: Don’t really have anything else to say about this episode.
Bex: No.
Alice: I liked the Maddie-Buck stuff. That was cute.
Bex: Yes. That was really cute. Um,
Alice: I lo- I loved seeing Josh again and having that, “Shit, did I mess up my time?” Um, yeah.
Ellen: I quite liked [01:24:00] that Buck is s- like, I don’t like that he’s struggling, but I like that they didn’t, they haven’t just swept it all away. Like it’s-
Bex: Yes
Ellen: … he, he’s actually going through something- Yeah … um, still.
Bex: We’ve, we’ve often lamented that for the sake of the storyline, the writers of 9-1-1 don’t linger when people are traumatized. They need to, like, get over it quickly so that they can continue to move on, unless them being unable to move on is part of the story.
Um- Yeah … but only a select few characters get to have their trauma be part of the story. So I’m … I do, like, well, I don’t like that he’s traumatized, ’cause, you know, Buck being sad is sad. Um, but it’s-
Ellen: It, it’s good that they’re dealing with it …
Bex: nice to see that he is allowed- Yeah … yeah, he’s allowed to deal with it.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: All right. Well, um, you’ve said it’s downhill from here, but what is coming up next?
Bex: Oh, next week, PAW Patrol race to the rescue with [01:25:00] emergencies at a spin class and at a hair salon.
Ellen: Interesting combination.
Alice: Yep.
Bex: That’s the headline. Um, the actual promo summary says, “The 118 race to the rescue with emergencies at a spin class, in a hair salon, and to a husband and wife in a compromising position.
Buck discovers new cognitive abilities post lightning strike.” That’s actually a fun storyline. I do like that one. Um-
Alice: Maybe it should just be, “Buck discovers cognitive abilities post lightning strike,” ’cause who knows Buck.
Ellen: Aw.
Alice: Um- Aw, we love Buck. As much as we tease him, he’s not an idiot.
Bex: He’s not an idiot. Um, Hen and Karen are concerned when they find out that Denny has been seeing his biological father behind their backs. Dun-dun-dun.
Ellen: Oh, they finally found out about that. Yeah, okay. Mm-hmm.
Bex: And Maddie and Chimney, and l- oh my God, not this one. Maddie and Chimney enlist Athena and Bobby’s help with a suspicious neighbor.
Ellen: Oh no, it’s the detective [01:26:00] agency again.
Bex: Um, it’s the detective agency again. Um, interestingly, this episode used to be called “New Sensation” and then got changed to “Mixed Feelings”. By the time it was actually aired.
Ellen: Huh.
Bex: And I don’t know why.
Ellen: And also interestingly, did you know that “Mixed Feelings” is going to be our 100th episode of this podcast?
Alice: Woo.
Bex: 100, oh my God.
Ellen: Yeah. We should have a party.
Bex: Do we get cake?
Ellen: Yeah, let’s, let’s.
Bex: Like one hund- Maybe … 100th episodes on TV shows, they get cake, right? So I think we need to get cake.
Ellen: I, I could be down for some cake. That’s a great idea.
Alice: I can’t eat cake but, uh, I can eat some yogurt with raspberries in it?
Bex: Can we-
Ellen: That can be festive.
Bex: Like mash your- I did have a s- a sweet potato-
Alice: I had keto cookies today, so
Bex: … in [01:27:00] like a, a cupcake shape with some-
Alice: I, I was gonna say I can’t eat sweet potato either, but I did have like a thir- a quarter, a third of a sweet potato tonight. Ooh. Um, treated myself, you know. Uh, no, I can get a birthday cake flavored protein bar. With a candle in it.
Bex: Can we just like-
Ellen: Delicious
Bex: … like a block of cheese?
Alice: I could do a block of cheese. A candle. I do love a block of cheese. Yeah. Um-
Bex: All right. So you can have the cheese, we’ll have the cake.
Alice: Yeah. Sounds good.
Bex: Yeah. Okay.
Alice: Mine is much more expensive, but…
Bex: Hey, no, no, I’ve gotta get a gluten-free cake. That shit’s expensive.
Alice: Oh, true. Yeah. That’s true. I forgot that yours had to be celiac. Yeah. Oh, we’re doing well. Meanwhile, Ellen’s just gonna be drinking gin and having a great time.
Ellen: Yeah, I will have a giant chocolate cake to myself. That’s fine. Screw you guys. I probably shouldn’t be eating that either.
Bex: Oh, no, no, no. It has to be red velvet that bleeds when you cut it to, like be on theme.
Ellen: Oh, wow.
Bex: [01:28:00] Mm.
Ellen: That sounds pretty good. Okay. I’ll see what I can do. I can just inject it with some jam or something.
Bex: Yeah, like strawberry syrup or something.
Ellen: Yeah Anyway, that’s next week.
Bex: Um, should we let everybody know if they haven’t already seen the episode? ‘Cause is there anybody out there who’s listening who is actually watching along with us week by week and has never seen 9-1-1 before? Oh, that’s a good question. If that’s you, sound off in the comments, ’cause I’m really curious who was watching as a…
I think most people are watching as a rewatch, but I’m really curious if there’s anybody watching for the first time along with Ellen. Mm-hmm. Um, let us know. In case you are out there and you’ve never seen “Mixed Feelings” before, please be advised that the episode contains a discussion of adoption/birth parent issues, a depiction of a sex-related injury, and I’m throwing in depiction of gambling just in case as well.
Alice: Yeah.
Ellen: [01:29:00] Mm-hmm. Okay. Uh, well, I mean, I know we’ve been quite hard on this episode, but please let us know what you thought of it. We’d love to hear from you.
Alice: Hey, if it’s your favorite episode, let us know why. Um-
Bex: Yeah … look, at least we gave it an entire episode instead of, you know-
Ellen: We did. We didn’t just jam it together
Bex: smashing it together with another episode. Yeah.
Alice: Yeah, true. Yep.
Ellen: And I mean, it wasn’t, it wasn’t as terrible as some of the ones that we’ve ha- we’ve covered, so it was all right. Just, just a lot of it was just the whole Wendell storyline is, was-
Alice: We just don’t care about Wendell
Ellen: … ass about face. Like, we, we didn’t care.
Alice: Sorry, Wendell. If you’re the actor of Wendell and you’re listening, it’s nothing against you. You did great
Bex: in the, like, two seconds of airtime that you had across two episodes.
Alice: That’s it. We just,
Ellen: we just didn’t know you.
Alice: Yeah.
Bex: Yes.
Alice: We just don’t care. We, we lack em- empathy when, um, when in the middle of it Buck gets hit by lightning and almost dies, we just don’t care about Wendell.
Ellen: Well, he actually did die.
Bex: Yeah.
Ellen: But
Alice: [01:30:00] Yeah …
Ellen: and that just shows you how little they bothered to get, let us get to know him before he actually passed.
Bex: See, if you’d tried to David Wallace him, maybe we would’ve cared, but you didn’t even do that.
Alice: No
Ellen: Poor Wendell
Bex: Poor David Wallace
Ellen: That was so long ago now.
Alice: Oh, RIP David Wallace
Ellen: Anyway
Alice: He just wanted to be cool for his kids
Ellen: Yes. So n- after this week, we, I, I’m going away on holidays for a couple of weeks, so the, the break of two weeks or possibly three will either happen after this episode or after next week. W- I’m not sure how the- What? … the editing is gonna go.
Um, but yeah- This- … that could happen. So if
Alice: you don’t- This may be our last episode for a while. Um, if you don’t hear from us in a couple weeks, do not be alarmed. We will be back. Ellen’s just [01:31:00] living her best life, um, probably in the sunshine
Ellen: I hope it’ll be in the sunshine- Or when I- … or be in the-
Alice: In the snow.
Ellen: Um No, I’ll be, like, on the Great Barrier Reef doing some snorkeling I hope. But-
Alice: Oh, I’m so jealous
Bex: Put sunscreen on
Ellen: Oh, yes.
Bex: Oh my God, put sunscreen on
Ellen: Lots of sunscreen. But yeah, we’ll be back in October most likely
Alice: Yeah. Um, we’ll miss you guys. Uh, feel free to write us lots of notes for us to read when we get back.
But, um, yeah, we will be back
Ellen: Yes, don’t worry
Bex: That’s either a promise or a threat, depending on what you think of the podcast
Alice: It’s a threat. We, we will be back
Bex: We will be back.
Ellen: Um, uh, yes, so please leave us a comment, um, on the website or on Spotify or any of our other places where we post things. We’d love to hear from you.
Thank you for listening this week, and we will talk to you next time about episode 13, uh, “Mixed Feelings”. See you then.
Bex: [01:32:00] 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.
[outtake]
Alice: I just, I need to play GTA V again. It’s been ages.
Bex: Well, you’re not gonna wait for the VI?
Ellen: Isn’t it nearly time for number six to come out? Yeah.
Alice: It’s … So number six comes out soon.
Ellen: Yeah.
Bex: But?
Alice: Um, finally. But I do not have a PlayStation.
Ellen: Oh, that’s right. It’s only- Yeah, so- … coming out on console …
Alice: [01:33:00] um, it’s, it releases in November. Um, but I don’t have a PS5. Yeah, I don’t have a PS5 or a Xbox. So the PS5 is $1,000.
Ellen: Mm-hmm.
Bex: Yeah.
Alice: So, like, I don’t just have that lying around to drop on a PlayStation when I’m getting another dog. Um- So yeah, so I don’t have that to just-
Bex: I was about to say
Alice: … to just drop on a PlayStation. Um, I have it to drop on another dog, I don’t have it to drop on another PlayStation, on a PlayStation. Um, so yes, it comes out in November, but I don’t actually know if I’m gonna get it in November. Nope.
Ellen: Well, it’ll come out on PC eventually, just-
Alice: Yeah, but my PC also won’t play it … not yet So that’s why I’m like, “Well, I may as well buy a PlayStation,” because I, like, a new computer, like a new PC is gonna cost me probably three grand.
Ellen: Hmm.
Alice: Um, because graphics cards and RAMs have gone up so much thanks to fucking AI.
Bex: Because of AI.
Alice: Um, and yeah, I don’t have three grand to spend on a new computer. And yeah, we’re, so it’s like three grand versus one [01:34:00] grand, like-
Bex: Yeah.
Alice: But yeah, it’s just annoying.
Ellen: Maybe a Christmas present for you.
Alice: So yes, GTA VI comes out soon, but that, it’s still a couple months away, but I won’t be a- w- I won’t be playing it at launch, unfortunately.
Which is sad, ’cause I played GTA V at launch. And then, so I had it on PS3 way back when it first came out, PS3, and then I got a PS4, so I bought it on PS4. And then when it came out on PC, I bought it on PC. So I have it on like three different consoles. Oh, wow. And I just don’t have, I haven’t been able to afford a PS6 because I’m not gaming enough on a console because I’ve been using my PC.
Gotcha. Um, but my PC is now coming on six years old. Yeah. And so it’s not gonna run GTA VI when it comes out.
Bex: Mm-hmm.
Alice: Like, it runs a lot, but um, but I can get… There’s like some Nvidia s- like program now apparently where you basically, like remote play games. Yeah. So it’s like a subscription service that you pay and then you can [01:35:00] play games remotely. Um-
Bex: Yeah, cloud gaming.
Alice: Yeah, cloud gaming. Um- Yeah … so I could do that, but-
Bex: That’s interesting …
Alice: I just, it’s a later problem. I’ll be two months deep into having another dog, so let’s see if I’m alive by then.
Bex: Future Alice’s issue.
Alice: That’s it.
Ellen: No time for gaming.
Alice: No time for gaming. Just obedience and puppy raising.
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