4.14: Survivors

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

In this episode we discuss episode 14, the final episode of the fourth season of 9-1-1, titled “Survivors”.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Athena and the 118 are on high alert when a sniper is targeting members of the LAFD. Meanwhile, Maddie makes a life decision.

Content warnings for episode 4.14:

gun violence, and threats of gun violence, blood, major character injury, postpartum depression, shippy fangirling.

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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?

Bex: Welcome back to That Weewoo Show, a podcast where we watch and discuss episodes of the A B C show, 9-1-1. I’m Bex.

Alice: I’m Alice.

Ellen: And I’m Ellen.

Bex: And welcome to the season four finale episode. We’ve made it to the end of season four.

Alice: It’s all downhill from here, folks.

Ellen: Don’t say that.

Bex: Not to be pessimistic, but um, she’s kind of right.

Ellen: Aw.

Bex: But before we dash Ellen’s hopes as to the future of the show that she’s fallen in love with. Um, thank you to everyone who has listened to our other season four episodes. Thank you to those of you who have taken the time to leave [00:01:00] us comments, uh, to reach out to us and tell us your thoughts about the show and who have rated us on particularly Spotify and Apple Podcasts. We very much appreciate your time.

Alice: Yeah.

Bex: So before we jump into the finale, Alice, would you mind remind, would you mind reminding us what happened last week?

Alice: Yeah, last week was a bit of an action packed episode. So last week on 9-1-1, Hen’s mother had a life-saving surgery after being diagnosed by Hen, Maddie struggled with motherhood after Jee was diagnosed with colic, Bobby hid a secret from Athena and none of that matters at all because Eddie was shot!

Bex: And he’s been bleeding out on an LA street for weeks now. No, that’s

Alice: weeks, months.

Bex: That’s not, it’s not as bad as Chimney

Ellen: for moments.

Alice: moments.

Ellen: Lots of moments, yes. So this episode [00:02:00] is episode 14, the finale, it’s called “Survivors”.

Uh, first aired on May the 24th in 2021. And the official summary just says Athena, Bobby and the 118 are on high alert when a sniper targets members of the LAFD and Maddie makes a life decision. Nearly forgot about that part yet important.

So this being the season finale, they do, uh, they do end up wrapping up all of the threads of the season. I think they do do a pretty good job of doing that in this episode, but we’ll get to that along the way.

So we’ve got a few triggers for this episode. Um, gun violence obviously, and threats of gun violence with the sniper. We have lots of blood immediately. And all over Buck.

Bex: Mm-hmm.

Ellen: And in his mouth. Um,

Alice: so much.

Ellen: Let’s, [00:03:00] okay, uh, where am I up to? I’ve lost my place.

Bex: Major character injury,

Ellen: Got distracted by blood again, what is wrong with me? Major character injury, like the gunshot that Eddie has. And we also have postpartum depression. And we have a further warning for excessive fangirling and clowning, potentially shipping in general.

Bex: I think that can just be taken as like read. It’s, it’s gonna happen. If you’re listening to this podcast and you don’t realize that Alice and I have like pancaked the clown makeup on and have our Buddie goggles firmly secure to our faces by now, then, um, I don’t know what to tell you.

Alice: I dunno what you were listening to.

Bex: Uh, but if we’re gonna be warning people about this episode, warning, I am in a bad mood. This episode has not helped. Um, so I may be taking out my bad mood on Kristin Riedel and Athena for the next hour or two. So if you liked this episode, I’m really sorry. ’cause apparently I thought I did like [00:04:00] this episode. I’ve discovered that I do not,

Alice: yeah. Apparently I’m the only one who likes this episode, so I am gonna be like bright and bubbly, and

Ellen: I don’t hate it

Alice: and just for the drama, waving everything. And, um, ignoring those two tonight,

Ellen: I thought, I thought there was like some particularly good acting in this episode. I thought that they, the, the team did like a great job with what they were given and it was exciting. You know? Like maybe it was the directing that was great. Like, I don’t know, there was something about it that made it in like good to watch.

Bex: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen: But anyway, as usual, we’ve looked too hard and, you know,

Bex: yes.

Ellen: Ruined it for ourselves.

Bex: I have smashed the glass and now I cannot unsee what I have seen.

Alice: I just gotta say too, so I just went to open up the Wiki ’cause I usually have that open while we’re doing this. Um, yeah. Typing up, typing in “9-1-1 survivors”

Bex: Oh.

Alice: Does not bring up the, the Wiki for some [00:05:00] reason.

Ellen: Yeah, I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff out there about that.

Alice: It’s okay. I got there eventually, but that, yeah.

Bex: Okay, so let’s jump into it.

Ellen: Alright. We are gonna, we are gonna start exactly where we left off,

Bex: which I have to say I very much appreciate because this show has a habit of setting up cliffhangers and then the next episode starting in a completely different spot.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: And making, yeah.

Ellen: Going back in time or,

Bex: yes. Or starting somewhere else that eventually segues into where we ended the last episode, but thankfully for this one, they did not. We are still on the street. Eddie is still bleeding out in the middle of the road. Um, Captain Mehta is still pinning Buckley down to the ground to stop him from doing something stupid.

Um, and screaming about

Alice: stopping him from doing a Buck,

Bex: stopping Buck from being Buck, um, and screaming that shots had been fired and a firefighter’s been shot.

Ellen: Yeah. So while the, the scene at the end of the [00:06:00] last episode went on forever because it was just like alternating shots of Buck and then Eddie and then Buck and then Eddie, that moment

Alice: and then Buck?

Ellen: Didn’t actually go on for as long as it seemed because this one Buck’s belly down on the ground staring at Eddie before he just commando rolls underneath the truck.

Bex: Yes. Because Mehta at some point takes his hands off Buck and Buck sees his opportunity and so he gets under the truck so that he can rescue Eddie.

Ellen: And I hadn’t realized this, like the first time I watched it, I hadn’t realized, but when I re-watched it. Again today I realized that he’s actually shouting the whole time that he’s doing that.

He’s like, I’m coming, I’m coming.

Alice: Oh yeah, he’s,

Bex: it’s chaos. ’cause you’ve got Buck shouting at Eddie. You’ve got Mehta shouting in the radio. You’ve got the sniper continuing to fire. Um, he hits Bobby’s battalion car, rupturing the petrol tank, which then catches on fire with the next bullet. So you’ve got [00:07:00] fire roaring, Buck screaming, Mehta yelling.

Just the peep, the one, the 1 33 are running around screaming like chickens with their heads cut off. It’s absolute chaos.

Ellen: Yeah. Really well put together scene actually. That’s crazy.

Bex: It is. I think I, we get to sort of the, the end of this scene and I realize that it’s only been two minutes of air time.

Alice: Yeah, yeah.

Bex: It’s, it’s amazing how packed this opening is. Um, so Buck crawls out from under the car, grabs hold of Eddie’s hand as Eddie’s sort of. While they ended the last episode with him sort of on his side with his eyes closed, at some point he’s regained enough consciousness to roll onto his back, uh, which has stretched his arm out.

So Buck grabs hold of it and yeets him under the car. Unfortunately for Eddie, it’s the same arm that’s connected to the shoulder that he just got shot through.

Ellen: Ow. Oh, he pulls him and all this blood like trails behind him. It’s like, oh.

Bex: But I guess in the [00:08:00] grand scheme of things, it’s, you know, stay out there, keep bleeding out, possibly get shot again, or have your best friend ya yank you across the road by said injured arm. I’d probably take the, the latter option.

Alice: Yeah. Better than the alternative, but Ouch.

Bex: Yes. So they get Eddie, he gets Eddie under the car and then under the truck and then out the other side where Mehta and some of the other firefighters from the 1 33 have taken cover and that kind of jolts Mehta into action. He’s like, okay, he’s, Eddie is out of the line of fire. Let’s get him in the truck. Let’s evacuate, let’s get everybody out. Um,

Ellen: and being yanked by the sore arm is like, like waking him up too. So he’s screaming.

Bex: Oh yeah, he’s screaming. So then we see, um, Oliver, exactly how strong Oliver is because he manages to pull Eddie up onto his feet, wraps his arms around his upper thighs, and then [00:09:00] lifts him bodily up into the cab of the truck.

Alice: It’s such a good shot. Like Oh yes.

Ellen: Very capable.

Alice: I do just wanna mention, I know that we’re, we’re in the Buddie of it all right now, but I just need to mention the fact that, um, Oliver did an interview about this whole like, scene, like from last episode to this episode, episode. And, um, he was basically saying that like he had to work out a lot because he knew that he’d have to be lifting Ryan and Ryan meanwhile was in between takes sitting there, eat, like standing there, eating cake

and Oliver’s like, can you like stop making yourself heavier for me? And everyone’s like, nah, I just kept eating cake.

Ellen: Which is totally unfair because he looks [00:10:00] amazing.

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: Like, ugh. Anyway,

Bex: if you, between, between having to literally like bodily drag and haul Ryan around and climbing ladders. Oliver got a workout on these two episodes.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: But he’s very strong. He gets him up, eets him into the cab of the, um, the back of the cab, of the, the engine truck. Um, and everybody else jumps into the truck while the sniper is continuing to fire at them.

Ellen: Oh my God, I really thought someone else was gonna get shot on while they were in the truck.

Alice: I can’t believe no one was. Yeah. Like I know there was,

Ellen: they broke windows and

Bex: Yeah, the, they get, they get shot straight on and we see one of the bullets like spiderweb the front windshield of the truck directly in front of Mehta’s face.

Um, yeah. Um, so he screams at the driver to, to back up, uh, ’cause they’re not driving in that direction ’cause that’s the direction the bullets are coming from. [00:11:00] Um, so they back up. But the driver is, you know, obviously not really being careful with where he is going. He’s just more, more, uh, worried about getting outta the line of fire.

And as he backs up, the back door of the truck is still open and it scrapes past the battalion truck, battalion car, which is still on fire and just rips the door off the side of the truck.

Ellen: Oh yeah.

Bex: Uh, but that’s enough of, um, a reverse that they are then able to head down the side street and get out of the line of fire. So Buck is, standing up in the back of the cab with a door open.

Ellen: He’d better hope they don’t go around the corner too fast.

Alice: It’s, yeah, it’s all very dramatic. It’s great.

Bex: It’s, it’s a very good shot where the car does go around the side and they’ve got Oliver in the back and he’s like frantically grabbing at the roof to keep himself balanced as they go around the corner. So it’s very effective.

Ellen: Oof. Yep.

Bex: Uh, so while they’re on route to the hospital, Buck is [00:12:00] working on Eddie in the back. It’s like ripping his shirt off him, using his teeth to rip open gauze pads so that he can stop the bleeding.

Alice: Oh, it’s so frantic. Like the, the ripping, the gauze with his teeth. It’s like, oh my god. Yes. Um, but yeah, so like Buck’s completely frantic. Eddie’s pretty much out of it. And then Eddie sort of stirs and Buck’s like, Hey, hey, like, just stay with me. And Eddie looks at Buck who is still covered in blood and goes, “Are you hurt?”

Bex: Yeah.

Ellen: Oh, Eddie.

Alice: And it’s like, oh my God. Like, dude, that’s your blood, Eddie,

Bex: that’s your blood in my mouth, hun. That’s,

Alice: it’s your blood I’m swallowing right now.

Ellen: He’s like “No, no, no, no. I’m all right.”

Alice: Yeah, I’m good. Just hang on. And he just keeps yelling, like, “Hang on, I, I need you to hang on,”

Bex: because Eddie’s fading out of consciousness at this point. Um, so after that sort [00:13:00] of, we, we don’t even get to see them get to the hospital. They’re still driving, Buck is still yelling and for some reason, we’re gonna jump back to, you know, Alcoholics not so anonymous in the middle of the Bobby and Athena fight from last week, where, if you remember, um, Athena tailed her husband to his meeting to catch him in his secret, which was he was sponsoring the woman who caused the highway crash a couple of episodes ago and did not tell Athena and Bobby kind of dropped a mic like you, this marriage isn’t working, walked away.

Uh, so we now get the second part of that where Athena is like, “You don’t get to say our marriage isn’t working and then just walk away.” But then Bobby is continuing to ignore her, her his phone starts vibrating and he very pointedly puts it on speaker to continue to ignore Athena a little bit more. And it’s Hen he’s like, [00:14:00] “What’s up, Hen? I’m on my way.” He’s late for work.

I, the the timey wimey of this is insane. I don’t understand what’s going on. Um, but Hen is not calling to ask where he is or to chastises him for being late. She’s, I don’t know how she found out, but she’s telling him that Eddie has been shot and that put him,

Ellen: why did they call Hen but not Eddie now? I mean, why did they call him but not Bobby?

Bex: I don’t know.

Alice: Well, Hen was probably, so hang on, did Chim, so Chim went to, did Hen go to the earlier scene or was it it was just the boys, wasn’t it Chim, Buck and Eddie?

Bex: It was just the Boys. Chim. No, Chim went to the station house with Buck. So we saw Chim and Buck walk in together. Eddie was already there.

Alice: Yep.

Bex: Buck and Eddie went to the apartments, leaving.

Alice: Oh that’s right. And met the 133

Bex: Chim was, was behind.

Alice: So was Okay. So they, so Chim would’ve been at work, so that’s fine. Hen probably is already at work because like Bobby’s at Bobby’s late at this point. Um, and so they would’ve just heard it on, on the radio. [00:15:00] Whereas Bobby’s doesn’t have a radio.

Bex: I dunno.

Alice: And so that’s why he wouldn’t know yet.

Bex: Regardless, it puts an end to Bobby and Athena’s fight, uh, because Bobby is like, immediately I am going to the hospital. Which hospital am I going to? And Athena also looks a little concerned. Um, so then we cut to the hospital, which is Burn Memorial and it’s a gorgeous shot overhead of the hospital, which has got a circular driveway at the front and you just see the 133’s engine truck come screeching around the driveway.

And as they’re coming round, a trauma team is already running out to meet them.

Alice: Yep. So they’ve already told them that they need a transfusion ’cause Eddie’s lost so much blood. And then Mehta’s explaining like exactly what happened. So it was a large caliber sniper and it was a through and through.

Bex: So Buck and the other firefighters are like bodily hauling Eddie out of the cab so they can put him on the gurney. He [00:16:00] immediately gets rushed away for a thoracotomy. Sure. Why not?

Ellen: They, they love doing that on this show.

Bex: They like cracking open people’s chests. Why not?

Alice: Yeah, they can say it. So it’s, it’s fine.

Bex: Um, but as soon as they wheel Eddie away, it’s like they’ve taken Buck’s power source out and he’s just, he’s frozen. It’s like he’s, he no longer has anything to do and now he, he’s just completely overwhelmed once again and he’s just watching Eddie be wheeled away and the other firefighters are racing into the hospital. LAPD have shown up and they’re racing past into the hospital.

Um, Mehta kind of notices that Buck’s shut down. He’s like, “Hey Buckley, are you okay?” But he doesn’t stick around for an answer and it takes Buck a good five seconds to very quietly say “No”.

Ellen: Oh,

Bex: and that takes us to the title card. And all of that happened in two minutes.

Ellen: Yeah. Amazing cold open.

Bex: Which is ridiculous [00:17:00] considering what, like, there are other, other parts of this episode where I am also timing how long it takes something

Alice: sounds, um, kinky, but sure.

Ellen: Okay. So here’s where we start getting a little bit eye rolly.

Bex: Oh my God.

Ellen: So Athena, um, goes to the crime scene, the scene of the shooting, so outside the, uh, Regal Point apartments, where the burnt out, um, truck is, the captain’s truck is still there, and then she bails up the detective who’s on site, Detective Denvers, introduces herself, and then she says she thought she’d stop by and see if she could help. And Denvers is like, “Why would you be interested in my crime scene?”

Bex: I considering how badly Denvers gets railroaded in this episode, I love the fact that she’s immediately like, why would a sergeant and an off-duty sergeant at that, be [00:18:00] interested in my crime scene?

Ellen: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Bex: Athe is like, well, I’m sleeping with the, like, I’m, that’s, that’s my husband’s car, like the guy that got shot, that’s one of his,

Ellen: yeah. So I’m invested in this now and you will let me help. And Denvers asks about Eddie. So she’s like, “What do you know about the wounded firefighter?” Like he’s ex-military and they work out that they don’t know what, who, like, who might have done it yet, but they think that he’s probably a very well-trained sniper.

Bex: So they feel like there’s a connection. So she’s interested in Athena at this point as a potential source of information about Eddie as a way to get some more information about why he would be targeted and who would be targeting him. Um, at this point, she get Denvers gets dragged away to a con discussion with, uh, a white guy in a suit.

It’s, it’s very much like, “Hey, Denvers, [00:19:00] that’s Athena Grant. You need to let her run this investigation.” And Denvers we’re like, “why the fuck would I let a sergeant?” “No, you don’t understand. That’s Athena. You have to let her.” And so Denvers very reluctantly, calls over to Athena and says, “uh, looks like we’re gonna need your quote unquote expertise.”

Ellen: You’re giving her a lot more snark than I thought she had watched it, but yeah, I love it.

Bex: Look, she’s in, she, that whole line, it looks like we’re gonna need that expertise of yours. It is a little bit reluctant. It is a little bit, I don’t know why I need you. I am adding layers onto this because, um,

Ellen: it, it kind of needs, it needs

Bex: because it needs

Ellen: some extra layers.

Bex: But yes, because otherwise, like there, Athena has no expertise in this situation except for the fact that she knows Eddie.

Alice: It’s basically, um. Oh, you guys haven’t seen Parks and Rec. I keep wanting to [00:20:00] quote Parks and Rec and you haven’t seen it.

Bex: You can quote it, quote it. We’re just not gonna understand that reference.

Alice: Um, listeners who have watched Parks and Rec, because you’re not awful people. Um, the part where, where Ron Swanson just like has his permit and it just says I can do what I want.

Bex: Yes.

Ellen: Oh yeah, I’ve seen that one before.

Bex: See, I haven’t watched Parks and Recs, but I am chronically online, so I do get the references.

Alice: Um, yeah, that’s, that’s literally Athena.

Bex: That is literally Athena.

Alice: Not to worry. Like, why are you at my crime scene? Not to worry. I have a permit. I have permit. Just says “I can do what I want. Athena Grant.”

Bex: yes, she has a lot of permits in this episode.

Ellen: The permit to kick ass. Anyway,

Bex: anyway, let’s move on.

Ellen: Back to the hospital.

Bex: Back to the hospital. Back to the hospital. Um, someone has found a new shirt for Buck. Um, he’s changed into an LAFD shirt. Um, he’s exiting the hospital and [00:21:00] I love the press have descended upon the hospital, but it’s like we saw the driveway.

It’s this massive circular driveway. Yet the press have decided that they are going to abide by the rules and just cluster this little corner off to the side. Um, and they’re quite happy to stay behind the tiny little cordon that LAPD have set up. Like, they’re not gonna rush around to the main driveway.

They’re just gonna stay where they’ve been told, which is very polite of them. Um, unless you’re Taylor Kelly, in which case you are going to push through the cordon and tell the officer to let you through. And she is obviously as mesmerized by Taylor as Alice is because she lets Taylor through to talk to Buck.

Alice: Oh, this whole scene I was just like gazing at Taylor, like, oh, she’s so good. So Taylor rushes through and Buck’s, like he’s still very out of it. He’s still cut, like almost covered in blind. He’s got a new T-shirt. Um, but he’s still got blood like [00:22:00] behind, like on his face, behind his ear and on his hands and

Bex: his pants

Alice: are still covered. So Taylor runs over to him

Ellen: on his pants.

Alice: Yeah, his pants. Yeah. Like it’s, it’s bad. Um, and his immediate thought is “No comment, taylor.” And Taylor’s like, “no, no, that’s not why I’m here. Like really I’m not working. This one, I just heard a firefighter was shot. You didn’t answer my calls. So I got worried.”

And Buck’s like, “Oh sorry, like I wasn’t checking my phone.” So he pulls out his phone and he like, he’s shaking like his hands are shaking and Taylor’s like, “Is that blood?” ’cause she still doesn’t know like what’s happened at this point. And Buck goes, “Yeah, it’s not mine, it’s Eddie’s,” and Taylor’s face just falls. She’s just like, “Eddie’s the one who got shot?” Buck’s like “Yeah, he was standing right in front of me and then. Uh,” and then he like, he’s like, “I need to talk to Christopher. I don’t have a car. I need to call a ride.”

Bex: Yeah. You can see him like in real time talking out like, I, I need to talk to Christopher. Wait, no, I, I [00:23:00] don’t have my car. I need to get a ride to, to get to Christopher. So I can talk to Christopher.

Alice: Like, he’s, he’s fine. He’s suddenly got a new goal and he’s trying to work out that new goal so he doesn’t freak out.

Bex: Yeah.

Alice: And Taylor’s like, “Look, I’ll drive you. We’re can stop by your place.” And Buck’s like, “No, no. I like, I got it.” And Taylor’s like, “You can’t go see his son looking like this.”

Bex: Except if you’re Ellen you hear something completely different.

Ellen: Well, she said it quite quickly and um, the first time I heard your son, but the second time I was watching earlier, I’m like, “You can’t go and see your son looking like that.” And I’m like, whoa. Okay. I mean we know that he kind of is, but…

Alice: Even Taylor knows.

Bex: Yes.

Alice: And yeah, so Buck’s hands are shaking. Taylor like takes hold of them to steady him and explain that. Yeah, you can’t see his son looking like this. And that’s where Buck sort of realizes that his hands still have blood on them. So then we get one of those famous 9-1-1 cuts where Taylor says to Buck, “Are you sure you’re okay?” And Chimney answers in another scene. [00:24:00] Um, going, “He’s pretty shaken up but otherwise fine.”

And still talking about Buck. But Chim’s on the phone with Maddie,

Bex: Who is also freaking out because she’s also been trying to call Buck and he’s not. Been answering his phone. So she also assumed that he was,

Alice: I love that everyone just assumes it was Buck like, oh, a firefighter’s injured fucking Buck again?

Ellen: No, just the people who are important to these particular people.

Um, Chim says, “I think he’s just in shock,” and that could not be more true. Chim. Um, Maddie says, “Another trauma to add to the pile.” It’s like, oh,

Bex: aw,

Ellen: poor Buck. So Maddie’s watching the news at the same time as she’s talking to Chim. Um, they don’t know anything about how, how Eddie’s doing yet. He’s, he’s in surgery, so, but then Matt, Maddie kind of tunes into the TV and she hears that someone else, like, uh, like a firefighter was shot at the scene of a car accident.

And Chim’s like, “no, it wasn’t a car accident,” [00:25:00] but they’re talking about a woman who has been transported and so there’s, there are more people being shot.

Alice: Yeah, there’s already a second victim. I don’t know how fast the guy runs with a sniper rifle, but, um,

Bex: yeah. So we cut back to Burn Memorial and Taylor and Buck have only just started walking out of the entrance when an ambulance pulls up with, and they, um, pull out female firefighter on a gurney and one of the other, the, the original firefighter who pulled her out was saying like, “She’s been shot. We were ambushed. The shots came out of nowhere,”

and Buck and Taylor are both like, what the fuck is going on? I would like to add here at this moment that I think in this episode, um, Jennifer Love Hewitt is, is like very visibly pregnant because they’re doing that thing where they’re trying to hide her body from all of the shots.

Alice: It’s just a lot of like face closeups. [00:26:00]

Bex: Yeah. Like in the, the scene where she’s talking to Chim, she’s doing laundry and like the laundry basket is on a table, so you can just see her from like, boobs up.

Ellen: I didn’t notice.

Bex: And I, I did the, I did the math on like, when they filmed this and when her last kid was born, and she’s probably about five to six months pregnant at this point.

And obviously with Jee having been born, they can’t, like, yes, you still have a bit of a belly after the kids are born. It takes a while for that to snap back, but she, she wouldn’t be looking that pregnant at this point. So yeah, I was watching this entire episode going, how are they gonna hide her belly this time? Oh, okay. Cool. This is how we’re doing it.

Ellen: Uh, all right. We’re having, there’s a lot of like, like I think the tension is mounted up pretty quickly by lots of like short scenes, like jumping back and forward between all the different things that are happening

Bex: except when it’s not. Um, but yes, so we’re immediately [00:27:00] jumping to the scene of the car accident slash second shooting, where Denvers has reluctantly agreed to allow Athena into the investigation and they’re watching the security footage. And you can see, um, the scene. There were several, um, LAFD units or LFD vehicles. There were two LAPD vehicles. There were lots of firefighters and police officers and bystanders all standing on the street sort of rubbernecking at the accident.

Um, but the only one that got shot was the firefighter. Um, they note that the, there were plenty of targets if he wanted, if the shooter wanted someone random, but he waited until LAFD showed up. He’s specifically targeting firefighters.

Ellen: so later, um, they’re still all hanging around at the hospital. Um, they’re outside again [00:28:00] though. Uh, do they not, are they not allowed to wait around inside the hospital? I don’t know. Um, none of them smoke, so I dunno why they’re sitting outside.

Alice: It’s just a nice LA night. Okay?

Ellen: I guess so. Um, but it’s, it’s extra nice because Albert has arrived, um, and he has food.

Bex: He has a giant, he, like, he comes in holding a cardboard box and then suddenly in a, like in a few minutes, they’re going to be holding and unwrapping sandwiches. So I’m assuming he’s come with like a delivery of food.

Ellen: That’s nice.

Bex: And ironically, his, um, his first line is “Who’d wanna shoot at firefighters?”

Alice: Yeah. “Does this happen a lot?”

Bex: Which, considering where this episode ends, like I would’ve thought that that would’ve perhaps deterred Albert,

Ellen: right? Yeah. Well, they catch the guy, so he’s fine.

Bex: He’s safe now.

Alice: Yeah, it’s all good.

Ellen: Yeah. I mean, it’s happened before, but not multiple times on the same day, like [00:29:00] multiple scenes on the same day. And Hen’s like, “I’ve never heard of multiple scenes on the same day. I kind of wish I wasn’t hearing about it right now.”

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: Uh, and as she sort of starts unwrapping her sandwich, um, she nearly, she drop like fumbles her phone and it drops, but Albert catches it and she’s like, “oh, your hand eye coordination is back.”

Bex: Yes. Albert.

Alice: Yeah. Albert fully recovered.

Bex: Yeah. So he asks, “so what do we do now? Do we just wait for news about Eddie?” And Chim’s like “Yeah. Or we wait until the hospital staff kicks us off campus. It’s been known to happen both ways.” Like, hmm. Okay. Um,

Ellen: what were you doing to get kicked off that time?

Bex: They’re probably like, that’s probably why they’re outside. ’cause they got kicked outta the waiting room

Ellen: maybe.

Bex: But Albert literally looks around, he is like, “Where’s Buck?” and Hen and Chim exchange a look and Chim says, “uh, he’s got the [00:30:00] harder job tonight.” And we cut to the Diaz residence.

Ellen: Oh, this scene,

Bex: this scene. It’s a lot.

Ellen: Yeah. So, um, Buck’s gotta tell Chris what’s going on and rather than telling him, um, that your dad’s okay, like, don’t worry, he’s okay.

He, he doesn’t quite, uh, well I guess at this stage he doesn’t know if he’s gonna be okay. So they sort of sit down on Chris’s bed and Chris says, “Where’s dad?” And Buck said, tells him that “He’s not coming home tonight, Chris,” and Buck, that is not the way to lead into this conversation. It just sounds terrible.

Bex: To be fair, the boy is traumatized. He’s not thinking straight.

Alice: He’s not thinking straight at all,

Bex: he’s also probably never had to give this speech before. Um,

Ellen: no.

Bex: So yeah, he’s, he’s doing badly, but I think, I think it’s understandable why he’s doing badly.

Ellen: Well, [00:31:00] Chris bless him, takes it quite well. He’s like, “Why, why is he not coming home?” and Buck fumbles through telling him that he got hurt at work today. Um, and not in a fire. But someone hurt him and Chris is like “On purpose? A bad guy hurt him on purpose?”

Alice: Yep. That’s the easiest way to explain it. Yep. A bad guy.

Ellen: Poor Buck is just like barely holding it together and Chris wants to know if he’s gonna be okay and Buck’s like, “Your dad is tough as nails. He’s a fighter.” And then you start, he’s like wiping the tears away.

Alice: Yeah. He says that Eddie’s with the doctors now. And Chris goes “Like the ones that fixed you?” Buck’s like “Uhhuh, like, like the ones who fixed me,” and Chris is like, “then he is gonna be all right.”

Ellen: Yeah. So cute.

Bex: At this point. Buck’s phone dings and he’s got a message from Bobby, um, which [00:32:00] tells him that Eddie’s out of surgery and the doctors went well and I am so disappointed because he did not sign off the text message.

Ellen: Oh, you mean it’s not true? It’s not canon?

Bex: It’s not true. It’s Fanon. We had so much fun with signing off all of our messages like Bobby, but he doesn’t do it in canon.

Ellen: He doesn’t do it in real. Uh, in the show

Alice: also why on earth… Buck just has like a generic

Bex: The iPhone background?

Alice: Yeah. Yeah. The generic iPhone Black background.

I’m like, Buck. You have friends. Like

Bex: 100% that background would’ve been of Eddie and Chris.

Alice: Yeah. Or the three of them at least.

Bex: Yeah.

Alice: It should have been a, like a still of when they were doing the, um, the skateboard.

Bex: I would also accept…

Alice: which would’ve made no sense because no one would’ve taken the photo, but it would’ve used [00:33:00] a still, still from that episode,

Bex: Carla, Carla had her phone there. She was filming the entire thing. So they would’ve got it from Carla

She did. That’s true.

Um, I would also accept a photo of Jee as his background right now.

Alice: Oh, it should be a baby. Yes. It should be a tiny photo of Baby Jee.

Bex: Yes.

Alice: Come on props. What are you doing? No, think it’s, it’s someone else that does the, it’s like something digital, something that does the

Bex: Yeah. Uncle Buck has dropped the ball on this one,

Alice: but, yeah. Um, anyway, so we’ll gonna Photoshop baby Jee off his background. That’s fine.

Bex: Um, but this text message, it just, it breaks down the last of Buck’s defenses. ’cause he’s been holding it together for so long and he’s finally, oh, he’s got the confirmation that Eddie is gonna be okay. And he literally starts sobbing,

Alice: he’s got the confirmation. Eddie’s alive at least.

Bex: Yes. And it’s now on like 10-year-old Christopher to once again reassure a grown man. He’s get, he’s got a lot of practice at this at this point. [00:34:00] This is,

Ellen: yeah. Well, he’s probably still a little bit confused about what’s happening here because. Buck hasn’t really given him any details. Um, so he kind of just puts his arm around Buck and says “it’s gonna be okay, Buck.” And they just cry together basically. Except I don’t think Chris is crying at this point. He’s just like, I think

Alice: Chris does have a bit of a cry at the end. Yeah. Yeah.

Ellen: It’s really, it’s super sweet.

Bex: It is very sweet.

Alice: But it’s good. It’s also good to show kids that like, you know, when sad things happen, you’re allowed to cry.

Bex: Yes.

Ellen: Yeah. Well I think he was trying to be strong.

Alice: He absolutely was.

Ellen: But it just didn’t work ’cause he was so relieved that, you know, he was gonna make it so he just kinda lost it.

Alright. After the commercial, we, uh, the, the news is reporting on the sniper who appears to be targeting firefighters. Um, and no open space is safe for the [00:35:00] men and women of the LAFD. So,

Bex: so members of the LAFD are watching this news and, and are realizing, oh shit, we’ve literally got targets painted on our backs.

Alice: Yeah, it’s a bit scary.

Ellen: So in inter intercut scenes, uh, we have Bobby lecturing the 118, or sorry, not lecturing, like pepping them up, basically explaining to them what’s gonna happen. And we also have, uh, like a few other groups around the place. We’ve got Athena and Denvers, um, like trying to work out how the sniper could have done what he did.

And we have the dispatch, we have Sue at dispatch, who’s also telling the dispatchers, um, that they, that there’ll be extra LAPD at every, um, scene that the LAFD have to go to. Um, “but we have to think strategically because we have limited resources.” So yeah, the 118 are gonna have to wear their bulletproof vest things.

Bex: Yeah. So we cut back [00:36:00] to the station house and Chimney’s like, “Great, but we’re still sitting ducks.” And Bobby kind of holds up a Kevlar vest with an LAFD patch across the front, and he goes, “Well, not entirely.”

Ellen: Those things are hot. It, it must be hell in like in LA wearing those things.

Alice: Yeah. Oh.

Bex: I think that’s the reason why most of the rest of this episode, when you see the LAFD, they’re in like their t-shirts.

They’re not Yeah. In turnouts, they’re not in their duty uniforms. They’re stripped down to their t-shirts with the vest over the top, because otherwise it would just be completely uncomfortable. So the needle drop for this episode, and I don’t understand why, if anyone would like to explain to me the significance of it, um, is “Season of the Witch” as, um, as known sniper and ballistics expert Athena, uh, reenacts the shooting to see where the casings from each of the bullets would land if these

Alice: Yeah. I’m pretty sure they have like [00:37:00] forensic people to do this, but sure.

Bex: So this this scene here with Athena, um, pretending to shoot and unloading the, um, the cartridges stuck in my mind as this is the most fucking ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. Even from the very first time that I watched this show, I got to this, went this scene and went, hang on. That’s pushing it a little bit. Why is Athena doing that?

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: Apparently the, the, for the rest of the episode I was okay with, but this bit I’m just went, no, no.

Ellen: Well, surely I have like ballistics kind of experts who yes. Come in and do this kind of thing, right?

Bex: Or you know, the actual detective who’s, you know, this is her field of expertise, but

Ellen: yeah,

Bex: it’s, it’s for the drama, it’s because it’s Angela Bassett. It’s because it’s Athena, but yeah.

Ellen: It’s all for the bit where the, the casing rolls under the, um,

Bex: I mean [00:38:00] eventually

Ellen: into like a drain,

Bex: oh look, I do not dispute that this would be useful because they’re able to retrieve an actual casing that they can then trace the bullet from. My thing is, why is it Athena doing it?

Ellen: Yeah, yeah.

Bex: Considering she’s still off duty at this point as well.

Alice: Anyway, in like, it doesn’t matter because I, like my brain stopped working, watching Buck strap on his bulletproof vest, honestly.

Bex: Okay. So yes. So while Athena is loading and unloading cartridges, we are cutting, we are doing quick cuts to the members of the 118 who are getting into their, um, vests.

Can we just take a moment to about how sad it is that Chim’s getting dressed with Maddie? Karen is helping Han into her vest and Buck’s getting dressed alone.

Alice: Yeah.

Bex: I also think Bobby’s getting dressed alone, but that’s ’cause his wife’s off playing sniper. So, um,

Alice: yeah, that’s [00:39:00] it. Oh, the Buddie of it all.

Ellen: Okay, so finally they’re ready and, the 118 have to roll out and actually go to a call. And when they get to this house, I mean, I’m guessing this woman is having like an asthma attack or something. She is wheezing as she’s breathing, you know, but she doesn’t wanna leave the house because she’s, she’s like, is it safe to go out there?

Like the, the news said that you guys were, you know, getting shot at, but Bobby’s like, don’t be scared. We’ll get you to the hospital. Safe and sound. They leave the house surrounded by like 10 SWAT team guys.

Alice: Seriously, so many

Ellen: In full armor. Why? They just said they had limited resources. Why? Why have they got so many of them? But I guess they’re trying to protect them from every angle. But I feel like in reality it wouldn’t be quite so many.

Bex: It, it would not, it would not be feasible because they would have like how many members of SWAT [00:40:00] are there? How many teams could they deploy? How many you, like how many, um, houses are there of the LAFD?

How many calls do they go out on? Do like, do you have someone who’s suffering a heart attack and they need to get ’em outta the house? Sorry, SWAT is 30 minutes away. They’ve got two more stops before they get to you?

Alice: Yeah,

Bex: it And who’s paying for this? Like

Alice: the city who can’t even afford to fix engines,

Bex: but there is like a quick moment that kind of justifies why SWAT is doing this because as the 118 are wheeling the woman out, um, we have a quick shot of Bobby through the cross hairs of a sniper rifle. The sniper can’t get a clean shot though because SWAT is there but he’s obviously still trying.

Ellen: Yeah. So Bobby gets home that night very awkward.

Bex: It’s so awkward.

Ellen: Athena just kind of comes in gently from the other room. Like carefully. Yeah. [00:41:00] She’s like, “I hear nobody got shot today. That’s good news.” But they both realized that they were a little bit overreacting earlier. So she says, “I know you’re tired. I just wanted to say,” and then they kind of apologized to each other for overreacting,

Bex: I don’t think, oh, she does apologize. I was about to say, I don’t think Athena actually says it, but she does. She says that she’s sorry too. Yeah. And they kind of rehash this conversation, um, that they’ve been having before about the fact that they don’t talk, I mean, conversation about not talking.

Ellen: They took, they have a, a brief talk about Yeah. The, the attack that Athena had the pre in the previous year.

Bex: Yes. She’s saying that, um, they, they didn’t talk a lot about, uh, what Athena was going through, but in the midst of all of that, not talking, they definitely didn’t talk about what it was like for Bobby to go through that. ’cause [00:42:00] remember, um, the radio went to an open frequency while Athena was being assaulted, and it, Bobby had to sit there in the truck and listen to her getting the crap kicked out of her.

Alice: Yep.

Bex: And as he said, he was sitting in the engine thinking that he was listening to her dying.

Alice: Yeah. And he says, “I didn’t need to imagine anything. I knew what my life would feel like without you in it. And it scared me.”

Bex: That he’s proud of her for doing her job. Um, he knew that she was just doing her job, but there was a small, selfish part of him that wished that she didn’t do that job anymore.

And Athena reiterates that for a moment she also didn’t wanna do her job. Um, she was scared and we saw that like the audience, we saw that in the episode that she was hesitant to go back out. And, um, then Elaine brought up retirement and she did consider it. And she specifically didn’t tell Bobby that Elaine had brought up retirement and she was considering it because she knew that Bobby would [00:43:00] support that and that she would, he would give her permission to quit and she couldn’t do that.

Bobby finishes the thought saying that she couldn’t let the bad guys win because everybody grabbed their shot glasses or beer kegs or whatever it is we’re drinking. Athena is a survivor, and Athena agrees and said, “Yes, we are survivors,” and everybody take a shot while we scream, um, while we start playing Destiny’s Child.

Alice: It’s weird that Bobby starts singing Destiny’s Child here, but hey, if they can get the rights good on him, I guess

Bex: he’s got the choreography down too. He just, he just needs the permission to go for it.

Ellen: All right, so as it turns out, Buck is staying at the Diaz house with Chris at the moment.

Bex: He’s, he’s sleeping on the couch, god bless him.

Ellen: Yeah. And uh, he and Chris are eating cereal when Carla arrives. [00:44:00]

Bex: Thank god Carla came back. Huh? That’s very fortunate.

Alice: I know, right?

Ellen: Yeah. What a, a great timing for, oh my God,

Alice: hang on. Has anyone seen Carla in the sniper in the same room together?

Ellen: No, but she has literally come to take, um, him to school it sounds like. ’cause she’s like, “You’re still in your pajamas and school starts in 20 minutes. What are you doing?” Buck’s like, oh yeah, sorry, I only just woke up and I don’t know what the fuck’s going on here.

Alice: Um, yeah, so Buck slept through his alarm and Carl was actually grateful because it means that Buck slept, like got some sleep and then

Bex: Chris is being sassy and he just said,

Ellen: this is adorable.

Bex: He’s like, “Buck snores. Loud.”

Alice: Carla’s like, “Ah, that’s also good to know.” And Buck’s like, “Thanks. Um, maybe go get ready for school Chris.”

Bex: And Chris is like, “Yeah, fine, I’ll go to school, but I’m gonna need a nap later ’cause of all the snoring.”[00:45:00]

Alice: So yeah, Buck pretty much like throws him outta the room and Carla’s like he seems to be doing okay and Buck’s not actually sure that he understands what’s going on. But as Carla mentions, Chris has already lost his mother. She’s like, “I think he understands more than we’d like him to.”

Bex: Yeah. That poor kid needs to be back in therapy. ’cause the trauma.

Ellen: Yeah. Well, especially now after this.

Bex: Well, I mean, he’s had, like, he watched Buck get crushed by a firetruck. He lost his mother. He s he survived a tsunami. Um, I don’t know if they ever told him about Eddie almost drowning in that well, um,

Alice: oh yeah, right.

Bex: People around him go away very often. And get hurt very often.

Alice: Yeah. So Carla asks like, how it’s like, what it’s like being back out there and Buck’s like, “Oh yeah, it’s weird ’cause like it feels off without Eddie,” and Carla’s like, “No, like I’m worried [00:46:00] about you being out there.” And he is like, “Yeah, it’s fine. I wasn’t shot yet.”

Bex: Yeah, he’s not fine. Definitely not fine.

Ellen: He’s traumatized.

Alice: No, I’m sure this next scene won’t show that Buck has any trauma from his best friend slash boyfriend’s. Blood getting in his mouth after being shot and almost dying at all.

Ellen: It’s because he’s turning into a vampire. That’s why

Bex: I thought I saw some glitter.

Alice: Oh no. Well, why is he hanging out around high schools all of a sudden?

Bex: Okay. No, let’s go. Okay, so

Ellen: no, no, no more.

Bex: We get a 9-1-1 call from a construction site downtown. No specifics. It’s just a random construction site downtown. Where one of these workers

Alice: yeah, it’s a construction site.

Bex: Um, got pinned by a cable way up on a tower crane.

Alice: Where’s the crane?

Bex: Uh, somewhere downtown.

Alice: Somewhere downtown? Yeah. Cool. Yeah, narrows it down… town.

Bex: He’s just like, [00:47:00] just start driving ’til you see a tower crane. It’s probably ours.

Alice: Yep. Um, I’m sure there’s only one.

Bex: So it, it’s a, it is kind of a cool shot because the, they have a,

Ellen: it’s a very tall crane,

Bex: a drone or something that they shoot up like right up to the top of a tower crane that is working to build a, like, multi-level skyscraper ish style building.

And then while the, while the, the camera is right up at the top of the crane, we see this teeny tiny little engine 118 and rescue ambulance pull up, um, on there. ’cause the site office down below. So the 118 get out. And when Bobby was holding up the vests to show Chim what they were gonna be wearing, I was like, okay, that doesn’t look too bad.

But it turns out that was just the vest. And then they had to add the Kevlar plates. So it looks like they’ve got phone books,

Alice: they’re very bulky,

Bex: strapped to their chest. It’s bulky as fuck. [00:48:00]

Ellen: It looks really uncomfortable.

Bex: It really does. So, LAPD is also on the scene. We have the return of Officer Williams.

Nice to see you. Um, the foreman is pissed though because he’s like, “why have you called the cops? We didn’t need cops. We just needed the ambulance. ’cause our buddy’s hurt.”

Alice: Yeah. Calm down. What are you so afraid of cops for? Jesus Christ.

Bex: ’cause his workers are probably undocumented.

Alice: Mm-hmm.

Bex: So the issue is that they’ve got a guy up the top of the tower crane. One of the cables came unseated. And the end of the cable is a couple of large steel beams and the cable is across the guy’s uh, upper arm pinning him to the, the arm of the tower crane.

Ellen: Why was the No, I,

Bex: no, don’t think about it. There’s absolutely no

Ellen: don’t want to know why he was there.

Bex: Logical reason why he’s out on that arm. Why the [00:49:00] cable is where it is. It, it doesn’t make sense. Don’t even try to think about it. It’ll just hurt. No,

Ellen: I don’Ananna think about it.

Bex: No, it don’t even think about,

Ellen: but he looks like he’s in quite a lot of pain and there is a camera up there pointing directly at him.

Bex: Yeah.

Ellen: So they can see exactly what’s going on.

Bex: Yeah. I’m actually surprised that his arm is still connected to his body if, ’cause the cables are those really big, thick steel cables. Um, and those steel beams are quite heavy as well. I’m really surprised that it didn’t just slice through his arm like butter.

Ellen: Um, so then there would’ve been an arm falling from the sky. It’s disgusting Anyway.

Bex: Um, so Hen and Chim are like, “Ooh, that’s like interesting and gross. Um, there’s probably an arterial bleed. He’s got like eight minutes to live,”

Alice: maybe 10. [00:50:00]

Bex: Unfortunately, SWAT is 10 minutes out and there’s no way that they’re gonna get an ent, entire SWAT battalion up the ladder with whoever has to go up the LAFD and there’s no air ship.

Alice: Yeah. So while they’re having this discussion,

Bex: they’re trying to work out what, how they’re gonna get up there and help this guy. Um,

Ellen: but Buck has other ideas.

Alice: Yeah. The the worker is just like, “um, I think he beat you to it.” And the whole team turns, including the cops. And Buck is already climbing the ladder.

Bex: Bobby is pissed.

Alice: Yeah. Hen’s just like, yeah, of course he did. Um, Bobby, Bobby calls the radio.

Ellen: Bobby gives him the “Please explain.”

Radio.

Alice: Yeah. Going, “No one cleared you to go up there. You’re completely exposed. We don’t have any way to protect you. Buckley. Buckley respond. Buckley, please explain.”

Bex: So to get up to the top of the tower crane Buck is literally having to climb a ladder. So in order to answer Bobby, [00:51:00] he has to stop climbing. And he is like, “I got this, I got a tourniquet, I got a rope Hen and Chim can walk me through anything else, anything else I need to do.” And then starts climbing again.

Alice: Chim just goes, “Can you blame him, Cap?” And Bobby’s like, “Yeah, yes fucking can. What the fuck?” and, Hen just goes, “Buck’s gonna Buck.”

Ellen: Kinda hate how they all like just shrug and go, eh, it’s Buck. Whatcha gonna do?

Bex: Well, I mean, there is literally nothing they can do right now. ’cause he is like on the ladder. They can’t like, get him back down. Um, so they kind of have to let him go.

He is just gonna, he’s gonna get it when he gets back on the ground. Um, so I mentioned at the beginning of the episode that the whole opening sequence only lasted two minutes. Um, and it felt like it took a lot longer. And I mentioned that there was another scene where time was a factor. And it’s this scene because we get a full one minute and 20 seconds of [00:52:00] Oliver climbing ladders with a couple of other scenes cut in and some dialogue every now and then just to, you know, pad out the time.

But it’s literally

Ellen: mostly just dramatic music,

Bex: mostly just dramatic music and sweeping camera shots of Buck climbing this fucking ladder.

Alice: Oh, I’m gonna make a reference that literally none of our viewers are going to understand, but it’s, it’s just Metal Gear Solid. There’s, there’s a ladder in Metal Gear Solid.

Bex: Yes.

Alice: Yeah. You got it. Oh my God.

Bex: Only because there’s, only because there is, um, as a TikTok who I follow, he’s also apparently a streamer on Twitch of games and he specifically played Metal Gear Solid to show everybody like the greatest troll that a developer has ever done. Um, and it is literally like two minutes of your character climbing a ladder while a music plays.

And there is no way to skip, there is no way to speed it up. You just have to let your character climb.

Alice: [00:53:00] It’s literally just like clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk.

Bex: And apparently he did it to stop the speed runners. Like it’s to force you to actually sit there and suffer. And I love it. Yeah. And yes, I do get that reference.

Alice: Oh, that game was full of trolls.

Ellen: That that is kind of how it feels watching Buck climb up just this crane. Yeah. But at the same time, I feel like it would take him a lot longer than one minute, 20 seconds to get up to the top of the crane.

Bex: So here’s some fun facts for you about tower cranes. Um,

Alice: It’s fun facts with Bex!

Ellen: I knew you’d come through with this stuff.

Bex: The tower cranes can vary in height, obviously, and they’re usually, they are the height of the maximum height of the building that they’re intending to construct. Plus like another couple of meters in order to give the arm clearance and to be able to, you know, get stuff up [00:54:00] over the top of the very top of the building once it’s constructed.

Mm-hmm. So they can go from, uh, I’m gonna be using metric system. I will try and translate as I go if I can. Um, so they go from 30 meters to up to 200 meters tall, which is,

Alice: Jesus

Bex: like 98 feet to like 650 feet.

Alice: It’s like almost as tall as Jared Padalecki.

Bex: I know. Like Gabriel would definitely need a tower crane in order to climb him like a tree.

Um, I did a quick Google and there was a, um, a little sort of like a day in the life of a tower crane operator from a guy who works, who worked on a tower crane at the University of the UN Minneapolis campus where they were doing some sort of project, creating new buildings. His, the tower crane they had on that site was 49 meters tall, so it’s like 160 feet.

It would take [00:55:00] him 20 minutes to climb the ladder from the ground

Ellen: Oh God.

Bex: To the cab up the top. 20 minutes. And then once he was up there, he had to stay up there for his entire shift. There was no like coming back up and down. So yeah, I don’t know how tall the ladder is that Buck is climbing, but I’m gonna say it would’ve taken him a good 10, 15 minutes to climb.

Mm-hmm. Keeping in mind that Chim said that this guy probably only had about 10 minutes to live.

Ellen: Yeah. And when he, when he gets up there, he, he doesn’t look too exhausted either for having climbed up

Bex: there is like they do a quick moment of, okay, Oliver, we just need you to stop and pretend like you’re out of breath ’cause you’ve been climbing for so long, um, to sort of indicate how long he has been climbing. Um, but yeah, he looks incredibly, um, refreshed by the time he gets to the top.

Alice: There is, um. Yeah, there’s one moment as well where like while Buck’s climbing, [00:56:00] there’s a, like a glint in one of the buildings.

Bex: It’s actually really pretty. ’cause it, it coats Buck in a rainbow for a second.

Alice: Um, but yeah, it definitely could be like a sniper rifle.

Bex: Yeah. Because as he’s climbing, he’s surrounded by other skyscrapers, which are pretty much all windows at this point.

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: He’s feeling very exposed.

Bex: But then he’s like, well, I’m,

Alice: I wish he was a bit more exposed. What?

Ellen: I walked into that one, didn’t I?

Bex: But then you can see that there’s the, well, you know, I’m up here already, like there’s, there’s no point going back down. If they’re gonna shoot me, they’re gonna shoot me. I’ve still gotta help this guy, so I’m just gonna keep going. So he gets up to the top, the dude who by all rights either should not have an arm or should be unconscious from blood loss or shock, or who should be dead is neither of those things. Um, and still screaming his head off by the time Buck gets up to him.[00:57:00]

Alice: Yeah. He’s been screaming for like 20 minutes at this point, but sure.

Bex: Yeah.

Ellen: One minute, 20 seconds.

Bex: One minute of 20 seconds. Which just, it just

Ellen: Buck has legs of steel. I’m telling you.

Bex: So imagine poor Oliver, he’s like, I don’t know what sequence they shot, but he shot like hours of like squatting and hauling Ryan up over his shoulder. And then they’re like, okay,

Alice: chocolate cake eating, Ryan.

Bex: Okay, now we’re gonna need you to climb a ladder over and over and over again. And like I, I do not believe that they stuck him on an actual tower crane and made him climb all that. But it’s probably, it’s really like sections that they just made him climb over and over and over again, but still his legs would’ve been burning by the end of it.

Ellen: Alright. He finally reaches the guy,

Bex: finally reaches the guy, chucks the tourniquet on his arm, and then they get him back down and that’s it.

Alice: How did they get the basket up there?

Bex: No, you can’t think about it.

Ellen: No, don’t think about it because [00:58:00] I, I was originally thinking how they gonna get this guy down, like Buck’s gonna have to carry him down again, the ladder. Like anyway. No, they, he cuts the cable and

Alice: I guess once he’s to tourniqueted, the SWAT team arrives so they can do whatever. I

Bex: don’t know. We, we do need to mention, like, I, I did kind of brush over the fact that, um, once he got the tourniquet on the guy’s arm, he did need to cut the cable in order to release the pressure on the arm so that he’d get the guy, Cliff, back down. So he pulls out his handy dandy little, um, hand circular saw. I’m not even gonna consider whether that would actually be strong enough to cut through this fucking cable. We’re just gonna accept that it is, um, cuts through the cable, says to Bobby like, “Make sure the area is clear down there.” Yeah. Cuts through the cable and

Alice: Bobby’s like, oh, clear. No worries. We’re all good.

Bex: Except the area. I mean, the area is clear of people, but it’s not all clear. ’cause he cuts through the cable. The cable [00:59:00] and those heavy-ass steel beams immediately drop onto a truck. A truck laden with water barrels.

Ellen: For the drama they had to have something underneath that would explode.

Bex: Yes. So water exploding everywhere. Apparently those water barrels were enough to absorb the shock of those heavy beams traveling at terminal velocity. Um, because the truck barely bounces. I would’ve thought they would’ve absolutely flattened the truck, but

Ellen: yeah, especially from that height.

Bex: Yeah. And then they teleport ropes and a basket up and somehow and like. Yeah. Somehow they get him back down again. We’re not even gonna try and figure out how he, how he does it. Um,

Ellen: they, they teleport him down again. It’s fine.

Bex: Uh, because the, uh, the, the important thing is that Buck’s back down on the ground now within swinging reach of Bobby.

Ellen: Yeah. The, the boss guy says, thank you. And Hen’s like, “Don’t thank us. Thank [01:00:00] the crazy guy,” and they all turn and look at Buck. And he’s just like, okay. He’s, he’s, and then Bobby’s just giving him the worst, like, just absolutely death glaring him.

Bex: And it’s like, wait till we get home young man.

Ellen: Yeah. I’m in trouble.

Bex: Yes. Because, um, apparently Bobby is not going on the, um, scorched earth with Buck. He’s going with the silent treatment. Mm-hmm. And so Buck slinks into the kitchen where Bobby is preparing lunch and he is just like, “are are you going to, like, are you gonna say anything?”

Ellen: He’s cutting up the vegetables with some force.

Bex: He is taking out all of his, all of his stress on the cabbage, hence poor unsuspecting cabbage.

Ellen: Mm-hmm.

Bex: Um, Bobby’s response is, “I don’t know, Buck. What do you want me to say?” Which, oof,

Alice: it’s very dad, very dad, Bobby.

Bex: It’s very dad. And um. Buck’s like, “oh, I, [01:01:00] I don’t know. It’s usually something along the lines of, what were you thinking? Or that was reckless or my personal favorite, you could have been killed.” And Bobby’s like, “well, it doesn’t seem like we need to have this conversation. You know it by heart already, and yet you still went full Buck.”

Ellen: Oh,

Alice: poor Buck’s like “you, you say that like it’s a bad thing.” And Bobby just sighs,

Bex: I do like this next part. I, I, I do enjoy Peter Krause. So he’s very, very good at his craft. He’s like, “You know what? I have come to terms with the idea that you’ll never be the guy who thinks before he acts. Um, I don’t have a choice. You are never gonna change. And, but I have, I’ve come to terms with that because I know that no matter how dangerous or impulsive your actions are, they come from your heart. You do it because you care.”

And Buck’s like, “wow, thanks Bobby.” And Bobby’s like, “yeah, that’s not what you did today. [01:02:00] Today you made a deliberate choice to make yourself a target. And I’m fucking pissed about it.”

Ellen: Bobby tried like Buck tries to defend himself by saying that he made himself a target because he didn’t want any of the others to be, become a target. ’cause he can’t handle anyone else getting hurt right now.

Bex: I think at this point Bobby’s, Bobby’s clued into what’s going on in Buck’s head and he’s like, “Buck, what happened to Eddie is not your fault.” Buck’s like, “no, but I was just the guy standing there who couldn’t do anything to protect him.” I’m like, what exactly did you think you were gonna do, Buck? He’d be like, do you have psychic abilities?

And you were unable to divine that a sniper was setting up and was targeting Eddie and like, throw yourself in front of a bullet you didn’t even know was coming?

Ellen: Yeah. There’s no real good reason for him to be so blaming himself for this whole thing,

Bex: except that he’s Evan Buckley and that’s kind of what he does.

Alice: Buck being Buck.

Ellen: He’s going full [01:03:00] Buck as

Bex: he’s going full Buck

Ellen: as Bobby called it.

Bex: So Bobby’s sort of like, you know, “We are a team. We are supposed to protect each other, just don’t do it again.”

Alice: And goes back to angry, chopping

Bex: and Buck, bless him, kind of senses that he’s been dismissed. And then we get, as the show is known for, as, um, one of those wonderful transitions where as he’s slinking out of the kitchen, we hear Taylor go, “That’s it?” Is apparently she is over getting wine drunk while Buck is doing his laundry.

Alice: Yeah. Why not?

Bex: It’s the weirdest setup. She’s literally sitting at the bench with a glass of wine while Buck is coming downstairs from his loft bedroom with an arm of towels or something. I don’t know what’s going on.

Ellen: Well, Buck was convinced that it felt like some kind of weird reverse psychology thing. Um, and he likes it better when he just [01:04:00] yells at me. It’s like he doesn’t yell at you all the time Buck, like

Bex: Occasionally he slams you against the wall in anger.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: But he hasn’t done that for years.

Alice: Yeah, it’s fine.

Ellen: Taylor’s like, “I could yell at you if you think that would help.” And she’s like so mad. Like it, the, the camera goes full on her and she’s just like got the angriest face.

Alice: She is so cute and Buck’s like “You can’t be mad. You weren’t even there.” Taylor’s like, “There are at least half a dozen videos on the internet of your climb up that crane all taken from nearby windows. Any one of those people could have had a gun and shot at your big stupid head.”

Ellen: You tell him Taylor.

Alice: And Buck just goes, “I was wearing a helmet?” and she’s like, “not made of Kevlar dumb ass.” But then Buck gets like that little satisfied smile and he is like, “Hold on a second. It almost sounds like you were worried about me.” Taylor goes, “I’m annoyed with you. You are not invincible. You could have gotten hurt or worse.”

Bex: Buck’s only answer is, “But I didn’t.”

Ellen: Oh, his [01:05:00] standard answer.

Bex: His standard answer, A, B, C, or D could have happened. But it didn’t.

Alice: Yeah, it didn’t. So what’s the problem?

Bex: Um, and Taylor is so annoyed and so angry at this that she immediately storms across the kitchen and kisses him. ’cause you know that’s a logical response.

Alice: That’s what you do. Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah. It’s angry fucking, Okay.

Bex: Pretty much, yeah. She’s gonna show like, I am so mad at you that I’m gonna fuck your brains out. I don’t know that that’s exactly, um, going to teach him a lesson,

Alice: but yeah, no, I feel like that’s a reward. So instead she leaves, she’s like, “Oh, um, I don’t know where that came from. It’s probably the wine,”

Bex: Ma’am, you had one glass, you’ve drunk, you drink so much, you one glass would not, would not, um, cloud your senses.

Alice: Um, but yeah, so Buck’s like, “Should we talk about it?” And she’s just leaves,

Ellen: she backs out pretty damn quick. She’s like, I should go. And he’s about to go after her, but then his phone starts buzzing [01:06:00] and it’s a, it’s Ana,

Alice: um, he answers the phone with What up Ana? How’s our boyfriend? Um, no. So he ans he answers and goes, “Is everything okay?” And then we cut to Buck, literally running down the hall of the hospital.

Ellen: Yeah. Bless him.

Alice: And he gets to the right room. He rips his mask off. Ana’s like in the middle of the frame, but with her back to the camera. And she turns to look at Buck and then moves aside to reveal Eddie awake. And he just goes, “Hey, Buck.”

Ellen: Did Ana like call Buck immediately as he woke up? Like.

Bex: I, I’m gonna assume so.

Alice: Eddie probably woke up and was like, where’s Buck? Like what are you doing here? Where’s Buck, uh, at home with your son? Where, you know, maybe Ana should have been, but whatever.

Bex: I’m assuming that Carla was a Chris at this point.

Alice: Yeah. Yeah. But Buck was the one that stayed [01:07:00] there overnight.

Ellen: True. Yeah. And later when they’re FaceTiming, so they’re FaceTiming with Chris on um, Buck’s phone, I guess.

Bex: Yes.

Ellen: And he does say that and Carla says, “oh, me and Buck have got it sorted out.” I’m like, what about Ana? She’s, she’s just been at the hospital the whole time? Like,

Bex: I’m pretty sure ’cause there was, there was a shot earlier in the episode where when they’re doing the sort of the montage thing where she was kind of sitting vigil next to Eddie’s bed. So Buck’s looking after his kid. She’s sitting there like the dutiful girlfriend waiting for him to wake up.

Alice: Yeah. Mm-hmm. But like sitting there isn’t gonna feed his son, so it’s fine, let Buck do it. ’cause he is actually Chris’s parent.

Bex: Mm-hmm. So Eddie tells Buck that he appreciates Buck staying with Chris and. Buck says, well, it, it made sense. It was probably overwhelming enough for Christopher without [01:08:00] him having to sleep in a strange bed as well. And so Eddie, he asks after Chris, is he doing okay?

Alice: Oh, yeah, because Carla offered to bring him to her house. Yes. Like still no mention of Ana looking after the kid that he, she’s basically been living with for the last couple months.

Bex: No, no. So Eddie asks after Chris, Buck says, “oh, he’s doing better than me. I, uh, I kind of lost it on him when I told him that you were shot, like broke down sobbing in his lap. I’m really sorry. I should have held it together.” And Eddie’s like it’s, you were, you were there for him when I couldn’t be. That’s what matters.

And Buck sort of mutters, “it, it might have been better for him if I’d been the one that got shot.” And Eddie’s like, what the fuck did you just say? I’m sorry. Is the anesthesia still clouding my hearing? What?

Alice: Yep.

Ellen: Yeah, we don’t get to hear any more of that conversation though, because we have to go to the, we go back to the

Alice: lapd, um, Athena, the ballistics expert.

Ellen: Well, okay. So we have a [01:09:00] brief scene where Athena, um, they, they got the results back from the bullet casing that they found if it’s what a sniper would use and matches the slugs from both scenes. Um, but they,

Alice: yeah, but they, they didn’t send a report. They sent the chief

Ellen: and so Denvers is wondering why he has come to deliver this news.

Alice: But yeah, like long story short, basically the ammunition was, was match grade,

Ellen: It was expensive and traceable.

Alice: Yeah. Down to the lot number. And ballistics reached out to the manufacturer to identify the purchaser and the manufacturer called the purchaser who happened to be the chief of police because the sniper didn’t get his ammo from the gunshot shop. He got it from the LAPD.

Ellen: Yeah. And the chief’s like,

Alice: Dun, dun, dun.

Ellen: I am not the sniper. Yeah.

Alice: Just to be clear, I, I shot nobody,

Ellen: but the LAPD provided the [01:10:00] bullets.

Alice: Yeah. So they, ’cause it’s very traced, like obviously you need to find, you need to know where really expensive, really powerful ammo is from the LAPD, so they know exactly who it was.

Bex: Yeah. A Athena says it later that the armory keeps detailed log of all of the ammo and those rounds were issued to him.

Ellen: So they, they roll into this house and they, they break down the door and then they chuck in a flash bang grenade. It’s like, wow, is this really how they go about arresting people? But I guess so if they’re just gonna raid the house,

Bex: but could we, like they throw, they bash down the door, they throw in the flash bang. The dude is just in his bedroom, on his knees, hands behind his back waiting for them.

Ellen: Yeah, he’s not doing anything dodgy.

Bex: I understand they’re probably, they’re treating him as a, as a domestic terrorist, but like you didn’t need to go to that extent. Yeah.

Alice: Well, they didn’t know, um, true. Anyway. Yeah. So they, they bring him in. Um, [01:11:00] he apparently got fired six months previously because he accidentally shot a hostage. And Denvers is just like, “ha ha, Athena, you have to go talk to him.”

Ellen: It’s like, it, it reminds me, okay, I’m just going to like, I keep bringing up Supernatural, but it reminds me of that bit where they’re, they’re like gonna, they, um, torture Alistair and they’re like, “Dean, you need to go and do this.”

Alice: Yeah, it has to be.

Ellen: She’s looking at Athena and she’s like, you need to get him talking. I’m like, she’s gonna torture him? Oh no. I’ve watched way too much Supernatural.

Alice: I haven’t watched in ages, but I’ve been like, I’ve had the urge lately. And I’m like, oh no, it’s calling to me again.

Ellen: Ha. Well, it, it is, it has been the birthday,

Alice: it has been Cas’s birthday

Ellen: and Castiel day. Yep.

Alice: Yeah, so back at dispatch, um, Sue like happily tells Maddie that they got the sniper and he’s in custody. It’s like, you should, like, shouldn’t you wait? But no. Instead they’ve been like, yep. This is probably the only person ever who has sniped anybody.

Bex: Oh yeah. [01:12:00] Like everybody, everyone’s safe now. Everybody’s on stand down. They’re like, yeah, we got the guy. Um,

Alice: yeah, we’re good. Which we haven’t even spoken to him yet, but we’re probably fine now. So Maddie’s in the conference room and Sue walks in and shuts the door behind her. And like considering Maddie’s family are like pretty much all first responders, she’s like, she’s not super happy about this news. She’s just like, “Oh, that’s a relief.”

And Sue goes, “Yeah, now things can go back to normal.” And Maddie’s like, “Yeah, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.” And Sue’s like, “This isn’t gonna be a happy talk, is it?” Um, should mention she still has a cane, so she’s still recovering. That’s always nice when

Bex: excellent continuity. Good work.

Alice: Yep. Actually have continuity.

Bex: Although this show sometimes is good with continuity. Like the fact that they had a mark on Chimney’s forehead for so long after the rebar incident. Sometimes they’re good with continuity, sometimes not so much. But I do like snaps to them for remembering to give Sue a cane.

Alice: Makeup and wardrobe do their best. [01:13:00] But yeah, Maddie just says very bluntly, “I’m quitting.” Mm-hmm. And Sue knows something’s wrong. She’s just like, you know, “Is everything okay at home? I know you’ve been worried about Jee.” And poor Maddie. She just says “I’m failing her. I’m just so tired all the time. I can’t focus, I feel like I’m in this fog. I can’t get free of, I, I need to do better. I need to be better and I can’t do that and be here.”

Ellen: Poor Maddie.

Alice: And Sue says “if you feel like you need to spend more time at home, I understand, but I want you to talk to…”

Bex: and Maddie interrupts her and is like, “Don’t tell me to go see like the counselors.” And that wasn’t where Sue was going, but she’s like, “no, I want you to talk to Chimney because what you are describing and what I see here, this is more than just having too much on your plate. You need to talk to Chimney.”

Alice: Bless Sue.

Bex: Which is exactly the, the exactly the, [01:14:00] the correct thing that Sue should, should have said.

Alice: Yeah.

Bex: But that’s all we get from that scene. ’cause we’ve gotta go back to the LA LAPD where they’re interrogating the wrong dude. Kenneth is our suspected sniper’s name. Um, yes.

Alice: What? Kenny Choi?

Bex: uh, he, the, the rounds.

Alice: No wonder he needs to talk to Maddie.

Bex: The rounds might’ve been issued to him, but he hasn’t touched his gun in months. And this, this scene I like, it’s, it’s for the drama. It’s so for the drama, but it’s so unnecessary because Athena’s walked in and like, you know, “You’ve got a grudge against first responders because you shot the wrong man and you lost your job.”

And Ken’s like, bitch, what are you talking about? I quit.

Alice: Yeah, Kenneth’s, like, no, I don’t,

Bex: I I made it, I told them not to bother doing an investigation. I knew that I had done something wrong and [01:15:00] I made it easy for everyone and I left. I so that I could try and get on with my life and try to figure out how to live with the mistake that I made.

Yeah. So I don’t hate firefighters. I’m grateful for firefighters, and I’m going, shouldn’t they have known that if they’d like pulled his personal file,

Alice: wouldn it be in his file? Yeah. Yeah. Like Denvers just like, oh, he got fired six months ago. And it’s like, whose file are you looking at? Because this guy quit.

Bex: Like, ma’am, did you actually open the file and read or did you just like look at the wiki summary that the AI that the a LAPD, um, officers are using and it’s just said, uh, like his job ended and this date and you’ve just assumed fired? I don’t know if they,

Ellen: no man, this is like four year, four years ago. AI was not good then It’s come along very quickly.

Bex: Well, that’s why the summary was so bad.

Alice: Not bad. Yeah. Like Google AI is not great now. They used Google AI and it’s just like, yeah, this guy was totally fired, lol. And they were like, oh yeah, we’ll just take that as gospel. Um, anyway, yeah. So Kenneth, who apparently is not Chimney, um, didn’t care about [01:16:00] care about being cleared, he felt bad.

Um, he loves firefighters, which is a weird kink, but sure they’ve got the wrong person. Also, Athena mentions that the accident happened, like the, where he shot the wrong man was in a factory. That’s all we get. So after he’s just like, yeah, no, I love firefighters. You need to find someone who doesn’t like firefighters.

Um, then we get a 9-1-1 call from a guy who’s like, (pathetic coughing) “I’m trapped in a fire.”

Bex: Oh, it’s so bad.

Alice: So May’s like, “Cool, what’s your address? Blah, blah, blah. Um, what’s your name?” And the guy goes, “Ethan,” and then hangs up.

Bex: Not at all suspicious.

Alice: No, it’s totally normal. ’cause they’ve got the sniper, the snipers in custody. It’s fine.

Bex: Of course. So the 118 get dispatched. Um, Ravi has been bumped up from B shift to fill Eddie’s spot while Eddie is still recovering. [01:17:00] Um, and he immediately gets paired with Buck.

Alice: Lucky Ravi

Ellen: not go Ravi.

Alice: Yeah. So they start like setting up the cha the scene. Um, Ravi does the exposition. “Glad we don’t need bulletproof vests anymore.” And Buck’s like, “Yeah, I won’t miss them.” Then we go back to the LAPD who are just like, “ah, Kenneth’s gun was right where he said it’d be buried in the yard, hasn’t been fired in months.”

What? Why was he still allowed to keep his gun?

Bex: I don’t know. Maybe.

Alice: And then Athena’s like, oh, maybe, he used a different…

Ellen: Why did he bury it in the yard?

Bex: Yeah, why wouldn’t he just hand it back in? Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah. It’s just, let’s not worry about that.

Alice: Athena’s like, “oh, maybe he used a different weapon,” and Denvers was like, “oh, probably not though, hey.” And Athena’s like, “yeah, I don’t think he’s our guy, but the ammo was his, oh, someone else had access to, but who?”

Bex: Hmm.

Alice: “Oh, rifleman don’t work alone. They work in pairs.” [01:18:00] And so instead of like calling all the, like the first responders going, oh shit, actually they might still be a sniper. They just leave it. It’s fine. I’m sure they’ll be right.

Bex: Well I think at this point they still have to like pull the personnel file and try and figure out where like who he, who his partner was, and then locate,

Alice: oh, absolutely. But like, maybe be like, actually we don’t think we have the sniper in custody. Like, can you please go back to being safe?

Bex: But would that incite a panic amongst the first responders and put them?

Alice: Well, I mean, probably, probably less panic than when they got shot. But, um, anyway,

Ellen: it would nice if, um, it would’ve been nice if Kenny, like Kenny, Kenneth had give, given up his, um, partner.

Alice: You know, they didn’t even ask him.

Bex: No, they didn’t care.

Alice: So Hen and Chimney are like in the burning building, yelling for Ethan. Um, there’s no sign of him. Dispatch said he may be unconscious. So Bobby’s heading up to three. Um, so he goes to the third floor and it’s some sort [01:19:00] of like fashion or like clothing warehouse, but there are heaps of mannequins, which is super creepy.

Bex: Mm.

Alice: Um, because like everywhere you look, you think that there’s people and it’s just mannequins.

Bex: And we do get a lot of shots through Bobby’s, like from Bobby’s point of view. So he’s in full breathing apparatus with like the face mask on. So not only is it creepy enough that there are mannequins, Bobby’s visibility is incredibly reduced.

You’ve got the smoke and the flames and then the masks completely narrows his field of vision. So it’s, it’s even more, um, it’s even easier for him to mistake the mannequins for actual people. Um,

Alice: oh, absolutely. I was mistaking ’em for actual, people and I was watching on tv.

Bex: We had full camera view. Yeah. Yeah. And while he is up there searching for this supposedly unconscious, um, man, May comes over the radios ordering the 118 to evacuate the building.

[01:20:00] Bobby’s like, “why are we evacuating on who’s authority we evacuating?” And May tells him like, “LAPD.” Like your wife is telling you to get your ass outta that building. Um,

Alice: Mom says she’d have to come home. Mom says you’re late for dinner.

Bex: Uh, but Bobby does not evacuate, um, because he sees a pair of feet lying amidst a gaggle of mannequins on the other side of the factory floor. So he’s not going to leave somebody behind. He’s going to rescue Ethan if he can. So he gets across the factory floor, he grabs hold of Ethan only to discover that Ethan was a mannequin.

And then Bobby realizes that it’s a trap and we hear over the sound of the fire, over the sound of his breathing apparatus we hear the very distinctive sound of a handgun being cocked. And then Bobby gets shot.

Ellen: Ah, I happened to know that he was in future seasons. So at this point I wasn’t [01:21:00] too worried about him, but I can imagine that if you were seeing this live, it would be quite terrifying.

Alice: Yeah. Like, oh my god, Eddie survived. Oh wait, nevermind.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah.

Bex: Uh, so that takes us to commercial. We come back to see LAPD have converged on the scene because I guess they finally discovered who Kenneth’s partner was and that he was the one that called in this fire emergency. The 118 have evacuated and they’re all standing outside frantically calling for Bobby over the radio and he’s not answering.

Um, and Athena of course is rocked up and she’s like, “Where is my husband?” And like, he’s still in the building looking for the victim. She’s like, “Victim? He’s the sniper.”

Alice: “Ethan Copeland? He’s not a victim. He’s the sniper.”

Ellen: She’s so dramatic.

Bex: Oh, this entire thing is so

She like,

Alice: took sunglasses off even [01:22:00] though it’s nighttime. It’s so strange.

Bex: Like, and just to like increase the drama. Um, Bobby kind of holds himself up as Ethan is telling him to, um, to call the firefighters back into the building. And, um, Bobby like rips off his rebreather and knocks his helmet aside and is like, “And what? And if I don’t, then what we burn?” And Ethan’s like, “Just tell ’em you broke your leg or something. Get them back in here.” I’m like, “nah, I think you shot enough firefighters already.”

Alice: Literally Bobby does not care. Bobby’s like, the fuck are you gonna do? Like, either you burned a death in here with me or like I call them back and you shoot more of my family. So like, why would I,

Bex: that does not sound like a, a good deal to me. No thank you.

Alice: No. So then we get Exposition Hen

Bex: Oh no, we get Exposition Deputy, um, director of like the LAPD.

Ellen: Oh yeah. He’s there too.

Bex: The chief because chief’s shown up. He’s

Alice: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, the snipers, [01:23:00] ex-LAPD. After his partner quit, they realized he was a problem and removed him from duty. So I don’t know why they were like, oh yeah, let’s get the guy who quit rather than the partner who we removed from duty,

Ellen: the guy who was the problem.

Alice: But sure, let’s blame the guy who quit because he accidentally shot a hostage and now he has the thirst for blood. It’s like when people feed dogs bones and it is like, oh, you can’t feed them raw meat. They’ll get the taste for blood. And it’s like, that’s not what, anyway, meanwhile, Athena’s just like, “yeah, but where’s Bobby?”

Um, Buck’s like, “yeah. Yeah. He’s on the third floor Bravo side. Somewhere around that window.”

Bex: Yeah.

Alice: And this, this scene is great though. Yes. When the chief’s like, “what’s right behind us? We are taking over this scene.” And Chim’s like, “You are taking over the fire?” He’s like, “Who are you?” And Chim goes, “Howard Han, 118. And since my captain’s trapped inside, I’m in charge of this scene.”

Ellen: Yay. And we all cheer

Alice: very dramatic.

Bex: Meanwhile, while Chim’s facing off with Pate, Athena is [01:24:00] staring at Buck like telegraph, like talking through her eyes at him. And Buck is staring back at her like, what, what are you trying to tell me? What? And of course he doesn’t,

Alice: Who’s stuck in the well?

Bex: So she drags him off to the side, um, because she’s realized that of everybody down in the 118, Buck is the only one she can strong arm. And she needs to get inside that building. And he is afraid of her. So he’s going to do what she wants.

Ellen: Buck’s gonna Buck, but she’s gonna force him to Buck in this case.

Alice: Yeah.

Bex: Yeah. She’s gonna take advantage of Buck being Buck.

Alice: She’s like, “Buck, you need to help me.” Hen teleports next to Athena and goes, “Help you do what?”

Bex: Yeah, she’s seen Buck suddenly gone. Like Bobby’s stuck in the building. Buck has suddenly disappeared and Hen’s like, oh shit, I need to find Buckley. Only to, only to discover it.

Alice: Is he climbing a ladder again?

Bex: She’s just got like, she’s like, [01:25:00] he’s with Athena. That should be okay. Um, but Athena’s like, no, not in this case. I need him to be Buck to go get my husband.

I do like this segue. ’cause Athena says, “go get my husband.” And Bobby says, “You’re insane.” I’m like, yes, yes. She Oh, you’re not talking to her. And we’re all like, okay,

Alice: yeah, we’re all like, yes. Yes she is. Bobby, you are correct. Oh, you’re talking to Ethan?

Bex: Yes, apparently.

Alice: And yes, Bobby’s like, “We’re both gonna die in here for what?” And Ethan’s like, “Well, I’m done either way, so I may as well take as many out with you as I can.” Bobby’s like, “Well, no one’s coming in.” Like, he’d be better off going to the window and just wildly shooting.

Bex: Yes, very much so at this point. Um,

Alice: but yeah, he’s a fricking dumb ass. He is a cop. So yeah. So Buck’s, like Buck’s back on the ground explaining to Hen like, “Oh, it’ll be easy. Like we go in on the Delta side, most of the fires contained there, um, Athena drops in, makes her way across to Bravo.” And Hen’s like, “Except she’ll be in a fire!” And Athena’s like, “So [01:26:00] put the gear on me. I’ll be protected. I’m not gonna be in there that long.”

Bex: So while this is all happening, Chim is still squaring off with the chief.

Alice: Literally they’re still chatting, as I said, like Ethan could have just gone and started shooting and taken out the whole squad by now.

Bex: Um, because he’s trying to get p to loop him into what’s going on. ’cause SWAT obviously wanna get into the building to get Ethan, but Bobby is in there. So the 118 and all of the other LAFD need to make sure that Bobby is not going to be caught in the crossfire and that Bobby is going to be, um, safe.

Um, so he Pate’s like, “I will, like, let me get my guys in position and then I’ll let you know,” and walks off. At this point, Hen comes back and Chim’s like, “we need to get this fire knocked down so we can go in there and get Cap,” and Hen’s like “Yeah. About that.” Um, and looks over Chim’s shoulder and Chim’s like, what the fuck?

Turns around to see Buck and Ravi [01:27:00] climbing up the ladder of the ladder truck with Athena in between them.

Ellen: Yeah, does the ladder take three people at once. Um, I know Athena’s quite small.

Alice: Yeah. Because it’d, it’d get, um, like they get, um, injured people up and down it with the thingy all the time. So

Bex: it’s, it definitely would be, I I’m guessing that they’ve upgraded since the last one that got blown up.

Yeah. Um, but also like, um. Ravi’s, like quite small. Athena’s quite small.

Alice: Yeah. Ravi’s tiny.

Bex: We got the brick shit house up in front, but that’s fine. The other two are Okay. Um,

Alice: yeah, so inside Ethan’s still chucking a tantrum. He’s like, “oh, where are they?” And Bobby’s like, “Well, the building’s on fire.” Like, what do you expect you dumbass?

Ellen: They’re both, both sitting there without breathing gear on. They’re both just like, the whole building is on fire. Like, Ethans, like monologuing.

Alice: There’s smoke everywhere. I don’t know how they’re not like passing out from the smoke.

Bex: No, I’ll say the Bobby’s, he’s starting to look a little bit sweaty and a little bit in pain [01:28:00] at this point. He’s, because he’s, he’s been shot.

Ellen: He did get shot. Yeah.

Alice: But he’s just like, “Oh, you know, we, we can totally save yourself. Like I can help you get outta here.” And this is where Ethan sort of like starts his little manifest and he is like, “oh, like, don’t you ever think it’s just a waste of time that some lives don’t deserve saving.”

And Bobby’s like, “Everyone deserves to be saved.” Meanwhile, on the roof, Buck cracks open a skylight tries to go in and Buck’s like, “No, I can’t protect you in there. He’s trying to kill firefighters and Buck’s like, “Yeah, you are dressed as one.”

Bex: Because at some point Athena got put in turnout, and please be aware that for the next couple of minutes, I am just trying to figure out who the fuck gave Athena their turnout, because we don’t see

Alice: Yeah. Who’s naked right now?

Bex: We don’t see the back of her turnout, I’m assuming Ravi, but I’m pretty sure that we get a shot of Ravi up on the roof and

Ellen: Yeah. Don’t we see Ravi?

Alice: Turnout. Yeah. Yeah. Ravi’s in his turnout,

Bex: so it’s not, so, I don’t know who’s Hen’s still in her turnout. [01:29:00] She would be absolutely swimming in it if it was Buck’s turnout. Um, I don’t think Chim gave his up, so I would be so curious to know where,

Alice: is there a, there must be a spare one in the truck.

Bex: I’m assuming that Athena just like sized up the 1 64 and the rest of the 118 as to someone who was like her size and just went

Alice: “You, get naked.”

Bex: Yes. I mean, it’s not naked, it’s just his jacket. Like just the jacket? Yeah. And the pants,

Alice: but, and the breathing equipment. Yeah. Um, yeah. So, um, Athena is in the firefighter gear. Um, she like climbs down a ladder. She manages, I don’t know what she’s doing. She’s opening doors, I think. Um, and she has her gun is the main thing.

Bex: I think the skylight, it possibly is a hatch for the service elevator. And she’s climbing down the ladder on the inside of the service elevator and then she has to open the, like, the sliding doors to get in.

 Oh yeah, that makes sense.

That’s makes the only thing that makes sense to me.

Alice: It’s, it’s all very like, [01:30:00] confusing and Ethan’s still doing his manifest. So he is like, “Oh, there was a guy that took this place hostage a few months back, hurt a bunch of people. Me and my partner, we tried to stop him.”

Ellen: You’re making, we made a mistake way more dramatic than he does even.

Alice: Yes. So much more dramatic than he does. “My partner shot the wrong person and innocent man got hurt.” Bobby’s like, “Yeah, we all make mistakes.” “The thing is that gunman shouldn’t have been alive. He’d ODed multiple times. But you firefighters, you so-called heroes, you kept saving him.” You saved, saved his lives so he could go and ruin someone else’s.

Ellen: We’ve gone into like in daytime soap, now

Alice: we have. It was great. I was having a great time. I don’t know what you guys were watching. Um, Bobby’s just like, “Yeah, that’s the job.” Like Bobby does not give a fuck at this point. No. He’s literally just like sitting there just like, “Yeah, whatever. We don’t choose who lives or dies. We say we just save people.” And Ethan’s like, “you don’t have to make the tough choices, but [01:31:00] people love you for it and hate guys like me.”

Bex: “You think saving lives is a hard job. Try having to take them.”

Alice: Bex is getting on board. Uh, meanwhile outside the new police sniper, sniper is in the building going, “oh, I have eyes on the suspect.” And they’re like, “oh, do you have a clean shot?” “Nah,” Why are you talking about it? Fucking

Bex: because like, he needs to, because he can see Ethan. Unfortunately, Ethan is kind of pacing backwards and forwards a bunch amongst. Amongst a bunch of mannequins so the sniper can see him, but he doesn’t have a clear shot. But he needs to know that. Yes, I do actually I can see him. I know where he is, so I can give him your location if you need to, but I cannot myself take the shot right now.

Alice: Yeah, I can’t do much. Yeah. Yeah. So Athena has been making her way through the building and as Ethan does, his very, you think saving lives is a hard job. Try having to take them. They then look to the side because something’s caught both of their attention. [01:32:00] And they look as Athena, who is dressed all in turnouts, walks through fire with a gun out pointed at at Ethan.

And before Ethan even aims his gun at her, shoot her she shoots, which I’m pretty sure is not how they’re supposed to go. I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to like yell at them to stand down first. Um, but yeah, Athena just shoots him because yeah,

Bex: I would assume that the fact that he has his gun aimed at Bobby. That he’s, yeah, she, that’s he’s a threat. He’s a credible threat. She can take him down.

Alice: It’s, um, and, and her only witness is her husband. And as if he’s gonna be like, oh yeah, no. Like he was unarmed and like not looking, he was gonna be like, oh yeah. She, he totally, almost shot her. No, it was so scary, you guys.

Bex: But the thing is

Ellen: Well he nearly shot him,

Bex: we, the thing is that we, the audience, we know this is Athena, all Bobby sees is a firefighter in turnout and breathing apparatus, holding a handgun, walking toward him and shooting this guy. And he’s like, he’s probably wondering A, whether he’s hallucinated or B, where the hell Buck got a gun from? [01:33:00] Because if anybody,

Alice: no, Bobby’s, Bobby’s got the most confused boner of his life right now.

Ellen: Well, once he works out who it is, then yeah,

Alice: no, then it just becomes less confusing. He’s like, oh, thank God. It’s like, um,

Ellen: oh, it’s Athena. Oh it’s you.

Alice: It’s like the poor guy in Mulan who’s got the hots for Mulan. And then it’s like, oh my god, you’re a girl. Thank God. Yeah. So then Athena like starts stripping off bit of music plays. It’s kind of weird. Um,

Ellen: yeah, while they’re still in the middle of the fire.

Bex: Oh yeah. The building is still on fire at this point.

Alice: Yeah. The building’s still on fire. And

Bex: also also seen the fire has not seemed to progress. It’s being very well behaved.

Alice: No, even though no one’s like, no one’s hosing it down, nothing. It’s just like, oh, you know, they told me not to go there, so I’m just gonna chill in my little doorway. Um. And yeah, Athena’s like, Athena doesn’t even like speak to Bobby. She’s just like, “This is Athena Grant. Suspect is down. Need medical [01:34:00] assistance. Captain Nash has been shot.” And Bobby’s like “Athena. How did you,” she’s like, “I’m here, I got you!”

Bex: oh, okay. Petition for

Ellen: It is really cool. Like look,

Bex: petition for anytime we get a sucky episode, Alice is just gonna recreate it. So Alice, you better be prepared to do most of season five. ’cause I think that’s gonna be the only way we’re gonna get through it.

Alice: Is this not what hap This is exactly how I heard it. I don’t know what show you were watching, but it was very dramatic when I watched it last night.

Bex: Oh, it was very fucking dramatic. But I wasn’t quite this dramatic.

Ellen: I, I love seeing, I love seeing Athena be a badass. She’s great at it. But this episode was just possibly a step too far with she no could

Alice: She walked through fire. It was very exciting. Bobby had a confused boner. It was great.

Ellen: There’s no way anyone would be letting her go anywhere near that building.

Alice: God no.

Bex: But which is why she targeted Buck, because Buck was the only one that was gonna let her do it. Um, [01:35:00] because he’s afraid of her.

Alice: Buck’s scared of his mother. Yeah.

Bex: Ravi’s scared of Buck.

Alice: Buck’s afraid of his mother, Ravi’s scared of Buck and Athena’s gun. Um, so he is like, I’ll do whatever. Hen’s just like, “Fuck yeah girl. You go get your man.”

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: Hen honestly, I think Hen’s checked out of this episode, she does not care. And anyway. Yeah. So Bobby wakes up later, he’s in a hospital bed. Um, he’s like, what up?

Athena’s like, “Welcome back.” He goes, “Ethan?” Athena’s like, “Yeah. He didn’t make it.” And yeah, so Ethan, Ethan somehow means that they’d arrested…

Bex: it doesn’t imply that Athena killed him. It implies that he killed himself because she says “he didn’t make it. Once we’d arrested Malone, Ethan knew it was just a matter of time before he figured out he was the real sniper.”

Ellen: That makes, no, that was before i, that was before she came in and shot him.

Bex: No, I interpreted that as,

Alice: yeah, like, oh, it was his fault. So like,

Bex: um, okay. Well I interpreted that as like death by [01:36:00] police. Like suicide by cop.

Alice: Yeah. Pretty much. Well, he kind of, well he did say that earlier, earlier too. He was like, yeah, I’m not getting outta here. Like,

Ellen: yeah.

Alice: So I wanna take as many as many of you with me as I can

Ellen: He pushed the confrontation

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: By setting fire to the building.

Alice: Okay. So I was kind of, um, yeah, it was definitely suicide by police. Um, but anyway, Bobby is still like, he’s like, “You went into a burning, burning building. I didn’t imagine that, right? You walked through fire.” And Athena’s like, “yeah, well you were inside. I wasn’t gonna let a little fire stop me. I needed to get my partner back.” Yeah.

Ellen: Drama aside, this is actually a really sweet Bathena scene.

Alice: They’re so cute

Ellen: It’s really cute.

Alice: He’s like, “Thanks for coming to get me.” And she’s like, “Always.”

Bex: It is the, the whole callback too, like. I needed my partner

Ellen: episode one.

Bex: Yes. Um, was very,

Ellen: actually, I think it’s episode two, but yeah. The first,

Bex: but it’s also, um, like the callback to just the fight that they had earlier where, you know, Bobby is saying you don’t want a partner in your work or in your marriage and Yeah. Or as I said it, like in, you [01:37:00] don’t wanna partner in the streets or partner in the sheets in the streets.

Yeah. And she’s here acknowledging that Yes, she does actually see Bobby as her partner.

Alice: Yeah. And like almost losing him one to a fight and then two to a crazy gunman. Like, she’s gonna hold on a little tighter now. Yeah.

Ellen: It’s really cute. Extremely implausible, but adorable.

Alice: That’s fine. It’s cute. It’s like, Bathena is extremely implausible, so we just go with it.

Bex: Yeah.

Alice: Anyway, so then we go to Buck’s loft and there’s a knock on the door. Buck answers it, and of course it’s Taylor and she’s like, “ah, you’re still not dead.”

Bex: Damn it.

Alice: Um, damn it. Now we actually have to have this conversation. I was really hoping that he’d just die and we wouldn’t have to talk about it.

Ellen: No, Taylor would never,

Bex: oh, Taylor, 100% definitely. Yes.

Alice: [01:38:00] She would’ve been so, she would’ve been sad, but she would’ve been very relieved. She didn’t have to have the conversation. Um, so yeah. Buck’s like, “Oh, you came back. I wasn’t sure that that was gonna happen.” And she is like, “Yeah, I kind run away.” Um, and he is like, yeah, I noticed,

Bex: but, and, but Taylor very, very rightly says, “But you didn’t chase me.” I’m like, he could have easily said, like, distracted you. Like I were distracted by the fact that my husband woke up from like his medically induced coma

Alice: Yeah, sorry. Like my, my boyfriend woke up. But instead he like becomes all profound and he is like, “Spent a long time feeling like I wasn’t enough and I don’t wanna do that anymore. So if you don’t want me…” but Taylor steps inside and puts her arms around Buck’s neck and goes, “I do, I really do.” And they have smooches

Bex: and I roll my eyes so hard that they’re like, they pop out of their sockets.

Alice: I just, let Taylor, be happy for [01:39:00] a minute. Jesus.

Bex: Look, I am very happy for Taylor. I just finding this particular, like I spent long enough feeling like it wasn’t enough and I don’t wanna do that anymore. Very hard to reconcile after like the red pill Buck we got at the end of tail at the end of “Treasure Hunt”.

That was pissed. Oh yeah, that totally, he got friend zoned.

Alice: Yeah, it’s just, but it’s fine because he almost died. Well he tried to kill himself a couple times this episode. So he’s all good.

Bex: Yeah, it’s just the inconsistency is doing my head in when it comes to Buck and Taylor and I know that’s because they’re pushing the relationship really, really, really hard and they’re not actually thinking about it, but.

Alice: Not only that, but it’s different writer every week.

Ellen: Yes. Yeah. That doesn’t help.

Alice: Yeah. And then we get the worst, like,

Ellen: oh, this is heartbreaking.

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: So Maddie is at home, she’s on the couch. Yes. We don’t see her belly. She’s just curled up on the couch and the shot is of her face. She looks very sad. [01:40:00] Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t notice it before, but yes, Chim, I, I guess I don’t know if he gets home or he is already got home earlier or something.

Bex: He looks like, he looks like jammies. ’cause he’s in a, a Phoenix shirt, like one of his casual shirts.

Ellen: But he says, “are you napping without me?” Like, were you planning to have a nap together? That’s a weird thing to say, but anyway,

Alice: it’s, I love, are you kidding? I love napping with a partner.

Ellen: Really?

Alice: Yeah. It’s great.

Ellen: Don’t you just keep each other awake?

Alice: No,

Ellen: that would, what would be happening if I laid down in my bed with my, but like we would just not, neither of us would be going to sleep.

Bex: Ooh.

Alice: Have like cuddles and like, yeah. Lucky Ellen, Jesus or Lucky Mr. Ellen. You just like lie down and it’s all cozy and like Yeah, naps are great.

Bex: That is not what is happening here though. Um, what is happening here is that Maddie is going to confess that she quit her job because [01:41:00] when Chim asks, “did something happen, are you okay?” She says, “No, I am not Okay. And I need help.”

Ellen: Oh, poor Maddie

Bex: and Chim is very quick to say “Yes. We’ll get you help. Whatever it is, we’ll get you help.” As Maddie starts to cry,

Ellen: he’s so worried about her.

Bex: Yeah.

Ellen: And like, I mean, admitting that you need help is one of the hardest things to ever do.

Bex: Yes. Admitting that you need help is the first step, but it’s the hardest step. And unfortunately we don’t get more than that ’cause we have to go to the fucking park.

Alice: Yeah. Can we just skip this scene?

Bex: Yeah, we can. We can speed run this in. Basically it’s Hen and Karen at the park with Denny, Nia and her mother is also at the park. They end up having lunch with Nia and her biological mother.

Alice: Yeah. Nia’s cute but it’s just like,

Bex: like, I understand.

Ellen: Yeah. I’m not sure of the point. [01:42:00]

Bex: The point is that it’s the season finale, so we need to wrap up all of everyone’s storyline so we get, like, we wrap up Buck and Eddie’s storyline. We, we wrap up the fight that Bobby and Athena had.

We plant the seeds for Madney’s storyline. We need to do something for Hen and rather than, oh hey, you know, she’s in medical school, maybe we could do something with medical school. They decide, no, we are going to wrap up by calling back to the Nia situation.

Alice: Which, yeah. So yeah. And show that Nias Mom’s actually lovely and so good, and she totally deserves to have her child back and blah, blah.

Bex: And so grateful to Hen and Karen for taking her child and looking after her. And, you know, Hen and Karen are so gracious and not at all admitting that they stalked this poor woman and where, you know, this close to like suing her for her child.

Alice: Yeah. None of that. Um, but now we go to the, the best scene.

Bex: The best scene,

Alice: the best scene. Um, so we’re back at [01:43:00] the hospital, but Eddie’s up and dressed his arm’s in a sling, and he is sitting on the side of the bed. He is finally kicked Ana out so he can actually talk to Buck.

Bex: Well, I think Ana is, um, back at the Diaz house getting ready.

Alice: That’s fine. Who cares about Ana?

Bex: But who cares about Ana? Because right now we have to talk about Eddie and Buck because Eddie has been meaning to talk to Buck about something. And this is as good as time as any.

Ellen: I mean’s pretty good for someone who’s about to be discharged. Usually they get rid of you as quickly as they can.

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: But he looks fine.

Bex: He’s, it’s, it’s a, whatever’s going on with Ryan in this scene is very good and he needs to continue.

Alice: That’s all the chocolate cake.

Ellen: Yes.

Bex: If that’s what it is, then cake on, Ryan because damn.

Alice: But yeah, I love like the, the way he delivers this whole, it’s great. So he is like, “so you might’ve noticed I almost died,”

Bex: again,

Alice: “again, again. [01:44:00] Had a lot of close calls. This one wasn’t even my closest.” So Buck tries to interrupt him and he is like, “just let me finish. After the last time when that well collapsed on top of me,” which remember was “Eddie Begins”, Buck’s like “you survived,”

and Eddie’s like “Mm-hmm. After that got me thinking, you know, what would happen to Christopher if I hadn’t? So I went to my attorney and changed my will. So someday if I didn’t make it, Christopher would be taken care of by you.”

Bex: And just in case the audience didn’t get that, he reiterates that it’s in his will. If he dies, Buck will become Christopher’s legal guardian. And Buck’s like, uh, what?

And

Ellen: Buck says what I’m thinking. “Don’t you need my consent?” And Eddie’s like, um, “My attorney said that you could refuse,” Yeah. And Buck’s like, “You know I wouldn’t.”

Bex: To put, to, to go back to that point. [01:45:00] No, you don’t need the consent of the person to put them in your will. You can put whatever you want in your will. Um, but it’s probably a good idea to clue them in before you do it so that you don’t get to the situation where something happens to Eddie. And, um. Attorney rocks up and goes, oh, by the way, Buck.

Ellen: Yeah, it’s a surprise.

Bex: You’ve got like, this kid is now yours and Buck’s like, “What the fuck? No.” And suddenly

Alice: surprise!

Bex: Christopher left going to CCPs because he, he doesn’t have a legal guardian anymore. Um, so it probably would’ve been a better good idea to let him know beforehand so he could prepare just in case.

Alice: Um, but yeah. So yeah, as Eddie says, his attorney did say he could refuse, but Buck says that Eddie knew Buck wouldn’t refuse and Eddie is like, yep. Knew you wouldn’t. Um, so Buck points out that he has grandparents and other family and Eddie’s like, “yeah, after Shannon left, they all tried to get me into giving Christopher to them and it’s not what I wanted then, and it’s not what I want now.”

And Buck goes, “if it came to that, [01:46:00] wouldn’t they fight for him?” And Eddie’s like, “eh, I maybe, probably, probably, but I’ll be dead, so who cares?” Um, no and no, “but no one will ever fight for my son as hard as you. And that’s what I want for him.” And Buck goes, “Wait, you said you did this last year. Why are you just telling me now?”

Bex: And Eddie’s response is “Because, Evan, you came in here the other day and said you thought it’d be better if it had been you who had been shot. You act like you’re expendable, but you’re wrong.” And I’m over here kicking my feet and squealing and like pillow up to my face. Um, because he government named him.

I don’t think Eddie, has ever government named him. Except for this moment.

Alice: Yeah. It just like full impact of the situation. Yeah.

Bex: I’m going to use your government name so that you pay attention to me because this is important. You are [01:47:00] not expendable.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Which is exactly what Buck needed to hear. ’cause he’s been acting a lot like he’s expendable. Yes. But now he has a reason to stick around.

Bex: Exactly.

Ellen: Okay.

Bex: And this is the scene that launched like a thousand fan fics.

Ellen: Yes.

Alice: So many fan fics.

Ellen: Do you want me to give my thoughts now or we wait till the end?

Bex: No, tell us now.

Ellen: Okay. Okay. No, I was trying to work out why this whole thing, like I knew it was coming because obviously there’s a lot of it out there and there was no avoiding it, you know?

Um, but I was trying to work out why this kind of got my hackles up. And I think the reason is because when someone does some, like goes above you and does something that you then have to do, like, or it, if I am forced to do something that I didn’t know I was going to have to do, um, I’m like that Pingu meme where he’s, he’s like [01:48:00] got his little arms crossed and he is like, “well now I am not going to do it.”

Um, and you get all defensive about it and I think that’s what’s going on here with me when I’m watching this. I’m like. How you just ex like of course Buck is not gonna say no, but maybe he’s gonna be a little bit upset by it, but he won’t because he’s Buck and you know, that’s fine.

Alice: So ba basically Ellen has pathological demand avoidance.

Bex: I was about to say.

And she’s

Alice: take it out on and taking it out on Eddie.

Ellen: Hang on, hang on. Has that got a name?

Bex: Yes,

Alice: yes.

Ellen: Oh my God. Have I just discovered something about myself that I didn’t know before?

Alice: Possibly. Oh yeah. Congratulations. Um, you probably have, it’s cool, it’s awkward because the acronym is PDA, which obviously like

Bex: Yes. Um, but yeah, it is a, but yes, it’s legitimate recognized, um, for those of us in the neuros spicy community that we are usually happy to do something until someone tells us that we have to, at which point we are suddenly would rather do [01:49:00] anything else, including ripping off our own fingernails than do what you’ve just asked us to do.

Ellen: Oh, brilliant. Okay. Well the, um, you know, the arguments for being on the spectrum are racking up. That’s great.

Alice: Maybe you’re just catching it off me and Bex the longer we’re doing this podcast,

Ellen: well, you know, I have other ASD people in my life as well. Yeah,

Bex: it’s like the opposite of herd immunity. It’s like herd influence. Yeah. We’re slowly turning. It’s spreading.

Ellen: Uh, I’m pretty sure it’s been there all along. It’s just. Now I’m just discovering new things anyway. Um, yes. No, I love this. I love that they’re doing this. It’s just if like, if you look at it, you can, I’m, I’m sure you can look at it through non shipping goggles and that would be a really lovely thing to, for your friend, like to, to say to your friend, you can look after my child because I trust you. [01:50:00] Also,

Alice: I’m always gifting my children to friends

Ellen: also. It’s really fucking gay. And, um, I can, I totally see both ways, but I love, I love the shipping implications.

Bex: It’s just, it’s such a, I’ve seen far too many romance movies where the whole concept of the movie starts with somebody suddenly getting custody of their best friend’s kit.

Yeah. And I know it would work in this case because the person that we want the, like the romance to develop with would be dead in order for this to happen. But it is such a, the, the whole idea of being suddenly thrust into parenthood is a catalyst for romance is just, it’s so inbuilt that

Alice: Yeah, no, this is a totally normal scene, guys. Totally straight. Just a straight man gifting their child to his, his best buddy. Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah. I mean, it’s. [01:51:00] Yeah, I’ve just turned back to Supernatural again. And I’m like, it’s like when they, people watch this confession scene in, in 1518, and they go, yeah. It’s just, they’re just best friends and he’s telling him how much he, you know,

Bex: he loves him, like a brother?

Ellen: Loves him, like a friend, like a brother.

Alice: He loves like a friend.

Ellen: And you’re just like, no.

Alice: Yeah. My happiest moment is always confessing to my friends that I love the what

Ellen: I mean now and then I do tell my friends I love them, but no.

Alice: Yeah. But it’s not my happiest moment. I just say it quite,

Ellen: it’s like, yeah, anyway.

Alice: I’m not confessing that I want ’em to know that I love them. Like, anyway. Um,

Ellen: yeah, it just feels like we’re going down the same kind of path, you know? I don’t, I don’t like that.

Bex: I’m sorry

Ellen: if if there’s not pay off at the end of it.

Bex: Can, I would just like, I would just like to reiterate that you chose to start watching the show. You held out for so long, because I know you did not want to be going down that evil pipeline and yet you decided to start the [01:52:00] show.

Ellen: I know, I know.

Alice: Um, rumor has it that they did actually wanna make Buddie canon these last two episodes and the network were like, ah, yeah. No,

Bex: it does seem to be like all signs are pointing at something happening.

Alice: Um, like there were like, basically there were interviews going around at the time where like Oliver and Ryan were both just like, yeah, we’re like, we’re really open to it.

We’re whatever happens, happens. Um, it was thing

Ellen: I thought they weren’t talking to each other during this season.

Alice: Yeah. But they’d been doing interviews with like,

Bex: so we can get into this a little bit more in the recap episode next week. But, um, one thing that I really do like is that despite Ryan and Oliver, like hating each other’s guts off camera on camera, they were fully committed to their characters and their character storyline.

You could not tell watching the show that they were not speaking. So if um, the show was saying, you two are going to go down this particular [01:53:00] path, they would be fully committed to doing what their characters needed to advance the storyline. Even if they’re like hating, even if they could not stand each other, they would publicly be supporting the show and supporting their characters arcs.

Alice: Yeah. But yeah, so that’s the rumor is that it was supposed to go canon and the network shut it down.

Ellen: Hmm. Interesting.

Alice: Anyway, so to close out the episode, we get a montage

Bex: because of course we do. It’s the season finale and we always, we with a montage. I think

Alice: we got to.

Bex: Or a cliffhanger.

Ellen: And Bobby gets to do the voiceover this time.

Alice: Yes. So yeah, we’re at the Bathena residence and the Grant Nash family, including Michael and David, uh, sitting down for dinner and saying grace.

Bex: That’s basically, it’s Bobby’s talking about, um, survival. He’s quoting Carl Sagan. And as he’s talking and I don’t really care about much of what he is talking about, we’re flashing and checking in on all of the characters.

So he is sitting down with the family for dinner, Chimney [01:54:00] and Maddie are coming to terms with the fact that Maddie is not okay. We get Hen and Karen and her family and Nia at the park,

Alice: uh, we get the Diaz residence.

Bex: We get the reason that Ana was not picking Eddie up from the hospital because she was organizing a surprise party for Eddie, who is either a, um, much better actor than Buck is, or Buck didn’t tell him about the party because he legitimately looks surprised when he walks through the door.

Um, to see Carla and Chris, his aunt, his grandmother, his girlfriend and Taylor Kelly in his house.

Alice: Yeah, his boyfriend’s girlfriend

Bex: Taylor is just so random there. Um, and so as we are flashing through all of the members of the 118 and Bobby is talking, we’re also getting shots of a firefighter running up a set of [01:55:00] smoke field stairs.

Ellen: Yeah, this was so confusing to start with. It’s like, who’s this? What’s this?

Bex: Yeah. Because you’ve got, that’s weird like that per, like, none of the 118 are at work. Why are we seeing a firefighter at work? Um, to make it more confusing as the, as the montage goes on, we start to, the camera starts to pull back and we get to see more of the firefighter and we realize that they’re not wearing the traditional black helmet.

They’re wearing like the, the yellow training helmet. Um, and by the time we get to the montage, which we’re gonna get to the sort of the end of Bobby’s monologue, which is all about surviving and struggling and collecting scars, which are memories of the past, but, um, we are survivors and we move forward.

Um, it finally reveals that the firefighter was kind of not at work. It was a training simulation, which they successfully passed by making it up to the roof within the allocated time to cheers and applause. [01:56:00] And we discover that the trainee firefighter is Albert.

Ellen: Yay Albert!

Alice: Who heard that firefighters were getting shot and was like, that sounds like a fun time.

Bex: Yeah. See,

Alice: um, also the entire 118 are on the roof cheering carpet. I’m, I don’t think they’d no be there.

Bex: Um, but also, where is the rest of Albert’s class? ’cause like, every other time we’ve seen, we’ve seen Hen do this, we’ve seen Buck do this. There have been other like trainee firefighters there. Did they do a special exam just for Albert?

Alice: They were like, oh shit, we, we lost a couple firefighters ’cause they were shot and killed. So we will just fast track this one through.

Bex: I don’t think he killed anybody and like, to be fair,

Alice: no, I don’t think he even managed to kill anyone. He wasn’t a very good sniper.

Bex: He also only shot two firefighters. Yeah. Like that’s the thing when you think back about like, oh my God, there’s a sniper.

Alice: Bobby was just lying there, bleeding for ages and he couldn’t even shoot him.

Bex: I don’t,

Ellen: he shot him once.

Bex: I don’t think Bobby doesn’t count. ’cause that was a handgun at close range.

Alice: Yeah. Which makes it even [01:57:00] worse that he didn’t manage to kill him.

Ellen: He was just a bad shot all round.

Bex: But anyway, yes. So they’ve got the 118 there. It’s, it’s a very heart swelling moment. It’s golden hour. So the lighting is absolutely beautiful. Um, the 118 and Ravi are all up there celebrating Albert’s success. Another firefighter

Alice: Ravi’s, like, I have no fucking idea who these people are.

Bex: Another firefighter Han is joining the LAFD.

Alice: Yay Albert!

Bex: And that’s, it’s very, it’s um, very symbolic because, uh, as Bobby is saying, we move forward and Albert represents like the future of the LAFD.

Alice: Yeah.

Bex: And that’s where we end season four. All their hopes and dreams resting on Albert’s very skinny shoulders. Then interestingly, before we get the end credits, we get a PSA. So if anybody was confused as to what was going on with [01:58:00] Maddie, the PSA clears it up. ’cause it’s um, it says that one in seven mothers and one in seven, seven fathers suffer from postpartum depression. You’re not alone. You’re not to blame.

Help is available. You will get better. Here are some numbers and websites to find help. And then we get end credits.

Ellen: Yeah. I’m glad they put that in. It’s an important message. And they do actually, now, nowadays they hammer it pretty hard. Like there’s stacks of information about it in hospital in like maternity wards and stuff now.

So, and they ask you, like, they come around and ask like several times at least. Oh yeah. I think while I was in hospital. And I think you have to keep doing these evaluations all the time

Bex: and every sort of postpartum appointment where they’re checking on, like the check baby’s progress, they’re checking in on you as well. Like, we’re gonna make you do the same questionnaire again. You have memorized the questions, you know the answers that you’re supposed to give, but you need to answer them honestly.

Alice: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A couple of my friends like, ha they haven’t gone through it like [01:59:00] really, really bad, but like it still hit them in different ways. Yeah. And they, like, I, I’m glad that they’ve been able to get support.

Ellen: Yeah. I mean the whole having a baby thing is extremely overwhelming. Like there’s no way you can prepare yourself for what it’s really like, but then to have your hormones go a bit crazy on you afterwards and then

Alice: Yeah, exactly.

Ellen: You just can’t deal. Yeah. It’s um. Anyway. Yeah. End of season four.

Alice: End of season four.

Ellen: I mean, it was an exciting episode even if like parts of it were extremely implausible. Like I know you did that, you, uh, didn’t like it on the second watch, Bex.

Bex: I just, uh, like I know I explained to you guys about what happened when I was approaching this episode, but I’ll, I’ll, I’ll explain it to everybody else.

So you know, what was kind of going on. So we finished Suspicion and then I was really excited because in my mind I thought “Survivors” was a good episode. [02:00:00] ’cause I remembered all of the Buddie stuff, obviously. Um, and there was this little bit with Athena and the gun and that. It’s pretty stupid, but, you know, we’ll get over that.

And then I started watching it and getting the notes ready. And part of that is we usually check who written, who wrote and directed the episode. And I not realized, oh, this one was written by Kristen. That’s weird. She doesn’t usually do Buddie episodes. And then we had that first scene with Athena and Danvers and I’ve gone, oh shit.

That’s right. This one, it’s just, it’s gonna be Kristen playing with her favorite doll. And like, it’s almost like, it’s almost like Athena is Kristen’s Mary Sue and it’s just. It’s just the,

Alice: yeah. Athena can do no wrong.

Bex: Yeah. The implausibility, the fact that Athena has to be centered in everything that she does, the fact that, um, like we’ve, it’s just that it’s [02:01:00] soured this entire episode for me, unfortunately.

Um, it, it’s, we’ve, we’ve joked about like the, the, How I Met Your Mother, you know, you break the glass and suddenly you can’t unhear or unsee it. And so that’s what happened. I went, oh shit, this is what I’m up for. And now I can’t unsear it or unsee it.

Ellen: That’s an, that’s a good point. Um, with like, sorry I’m interrupting.

Um, well you said the Buddie of it all, like in that scene and everything. Yeah. Um, that like normally this show is very like insistent that blood family is the only answer. And so I thought it was interesting that they’ve like gone in this direction with Buck, like Buck and Eddie with the, with the will stuff.

Like, they’ve deliberately gone the

Bex: Yes.

Ellen: Found family route rather than like, he’s like, oh, I, I guess they’ll probably try and fight it and I don’t know, which

Bex: was like why I was so surprised that this was a Kristen written episode. ’cause Kristen is very, yeah. Very strong with blood family trumps all. Um,

Ellen: I wonder if she [02:02:00] actually wrote all of that or if someone else

Bex: well see it. It

Ellen: did that part.

Bex: I begs the question again, how the writer’s room works, like how much do, uh, do the staff writers contribute compared to the person whose name goes on the credits as the final writer? Yeah. Um, whether stuff came across from the previous episode, which was written by Andrew and Lindsay, um, and that got dragged into this episode, but because Kristen wrote the Athena stuff, she gets credit for it.

So I don’t, I don’t know. But unfortunately, like, like I said, I was cranky. Um, and so when I get cranky, I get snarky and critical. So I took it out on the show. Um,

Ellen: that’s okay. It was probably a good episode to be doing that.

Alice: Meanwhile, I watched it before bed last night and I was having a great time ’cause I was tired and my brain was switched off.

Bex: See, that’s the thing we’ve also talked about. Sometimes

Ellen: that’s the best way

Bex: this show, they’re, they do things for the drama [02:03:00] and if you switch your brain off, it’s fine and you can,

Alice: you’re having a good time. It’s fine. Yeah.

Bex: Yeah. I just was not having a good time with this episode. Yeah. So I was unable to switch off my brain.

Alice: I’m sitting there like, yeah, Athena, go get your man. Yeah.

Bex: And I’m sitting there going, who the fuck let her up onto that roof? But it’s fine. I, I will be interested to see whether I can watch it again and to be able to enjoy it or whether it’s gonna be tarnished for me forever now,

Ellen: it’s almost better if you don’t know who was, who was the writer or director before you start watching it. But they do tell you at the beginning of the show who wrote it. So

Bex: I think even, even if I had not realized it was a Kristin episode, I would’ve got three quarters of the way through the episode and had seen the way Athena was being prioritized over the actual, literal detective whose job it should have been to do the um, the investigation,

Alice: anything? Yeah.

Bex: And I would’ve gone, what the fuck is going on? Why is Athena being elevated? [02:04:00] Like she is queen of, um, queen of the LAPD? And it still would’ve pissed me off.

Ellen: Because she is the queen of the LAPD of course.

Alice: She’s the only member of the LAPD,

Bex: apparently the only one who can actually do anything. And I don’t actually know why this particular episode pissed me off so much because we’ve joked about the fact that when she’s with Romero, the same thing happens.

She kind of takes over. And to some extent with Lou Ranon as well, she tends to take over. But it doesn’t seem as egregious as it was in this episode.

Ellen: Mm-hmm.

Bex: I don’t know.

Ellen: Maybe it was ’cause it was someone we didn’t already know.

Bex: Maybe, I don’t know. Listeners, if you’ve made it this far, tell me, tell us what you thought of this episode.

Were you having a grand old time like Alice? Or did you hate every episode with every fiber of your being like I did apparently. Uh, you can send through your thoughts on any of our social media platforms. You [02:05:00] can email us. Uh, you can leave a comment on our website.

If you go to wherever, uh, wherever you’re listening to us, there should be a bio. There should be links in those bios. You’ll be able to find your way, some way to contact us. Um, I would not recommend smoke signals or carrier pigeons simply because of the distances involved. We definitely won’t get those messages message in the bottle.

Well, I was gonna reach us, but probably not in time for us to include your thoughts in our recap episode, which will be coming up next.

Ellen: Yeah, I was just about to say, I think it might already be too late for that because if we are recording this, if we’re recording the wrap up episode a week after this episode goes out, that will be too late.

Bex: Oh, it might not even to be for the recap episode. If you just wanna tell us what you thought of this episode just to scream at me that I was wrong and this was an absolutely brilliant episode, and I should be ashamed of myself for what I’ve been talking about for the last two [02:06:00] hours.

Ellen: Oh, not at all. It was worth ranting at,

Bex: but if you’d like to hear me rant for another two hours, join us next week for our recap episode.

Ellen: Yes, next week. Next week we’ll be doing the season four recap. We have no, you know, summary to read out or anything, but we will be talking about the entirety of season four. I don’t think we’ve got anything else to more to say, do we? Anything else about this episode we wanted to speak about or shall we save it all for next week?

Bex: I could continue ranting, but I think people are probably hear tired of hearing my voice, so we’ll wrap it up and I’ll save it all for next week.

Ellen: Let’s, let’s let, let Bex get some rest, but I can’t even speak anymore. Let’s let Bex get some rest and you might feel better about things next week. You know,

Bex: maybe potential.

Alice: That’s really interesting. So the director of this episode only directed this episode and “Eddie Begins”, that was it.

Ellen: Oh, maybe that’s why I enjoyed it, because I thought the directing was good. [02:07:00] I did say that earlier.

Bex: You did, yes.

Ellen: Alright, we’re done.

Bex: We are

Alice: beautiful.

Bex: Thanks for listening everyone, and we’ll see you next week.

Ellen: Alright. You can just do the sign off. Thanks everyone for listening and we will talk to you next week about season four in total. See you then.

Bex: Bye

Alice: Bye.

Ellen: 9-1-1 is a fictional show, but many of the situations portrayed happen in the real world too. If any of the topics we’ve discussed in this episode have affected you, please know you are not alone. You can call or text numbers in your country for help. Just Google crisis support in your location to find out the number.

If you enjoy our podcast, you can help us out by leaving us a review on Spotify or your preferred listening app and by sharing our social media posts. Find out more at thatweewooshow.com.[02:08:00]

[outtake]

Bex: I think my monster kicked in.

Alice: I have a, so I normally get the like, um, the blue no sugar Gatorade.

Bex: Mm-hmm.

Alice: Which is Glacier Freeze. Who the fuck knows what flavor that is?

Bex: Blue flavor

Alice: anyway. Yeah. Yeah. It tastes like blue. Um, so yeah, I normally get the, the Glacier Freeze Gatorade, no sugar. They had them for like half off or something at Coles last week.

So Mum put in an order for me for six of them and they ran out of the blue one. So I got like three of the blue one, but then I also got three of the grape. ’cause Mum doesn’t select. Like Mum’s just like, oh yeah, substitute. Oh, you allow substitutions. Oh, that’s a Mum does. I never do. No. Um, I always say, no, I’d prefer a refund.

Yes. But anyway, so Mum, Mum finds it funny what they, what she gets sometimes, so she keeps it on. Um, anyway, so they gave me the grape one and I’ve drank like, not even half of it. So I opened it when we [02:09:00] started, or just before we started. And I’ve drank not even half. It just tastes like great bubblegum.

Bex: It does,

Alice: it’s like too sweet.

And I’m like, it’s supposed to be no sugar. And it’s just, it’s too sweet for me and I can’t, I’m like, this is, why don’t a grape one? Because

Ellen: no sugar doesn’t mean no sweet. Yeah. It just means it’s got fake sweet in it.

Alice: I know. But normally they tone down the sweet and it just, it’s, yeah, I’m not a fan.

Ellen: Oh, dear.

Alice: So yeah. Gatorade, no sugar, grape flavor? Not,

Bex: not a fan?

Alice: Not recommended, no.

Bex: Okay.

Alice: I liked it less than this episode.

Bex: That’s gonna be from now on, we are gonna be rating 9-1-1 episodes on a Gatorade scale. Like where do they, yeah.

Ellen: Did I like it more than grape?

Alice: Was it as bad as the grape Gatorade?

Bex: This is a, this, this episode is like a, a glacier blue. Um, and then we’re like, the, the really good ones are like the red, whatever flavor that is. We’ll have a whole scale. It’ll be a thing.

Alice: We’ll have a gator. It’s [02:10:00] like, um, like Supernatural Then and Now rate with beards. We’ll start raid with Gatorades and then Gatorade will sponsor us and we’ll just get free Gatorade for life. Oh, that’s the dream.