5.15: FOMO

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 15 of the fifth season of 9-1-1, titled “FOMO”.

The 118 races to an influencer in a sauna and an emergency at a reality show wedding. Maddie worries she has missed many Jee-Yun’s firsts, May questions Athena’s career and Hen and Karen try to recapture the fun in their relationship.

Content warnings for episode 5.15:

fainting, gore (severe facial burn), minor character death.

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Episode Transcript

Maddie: [00:00:00] 9-1-1. What’s your emergency?

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

Alice: I’m Alice.

Bex: And I’m Bex.

Ellen: Uh, welcome back to season five. Um, I apologize for my slightly hoarse voice. I dunno what’s, apparently I’m getting ill, but, um, I’ll do my best to actually speak properly during this episode. Um, but

Alice: Weewoo After Dark happening again tonight.

Ellen: Weewoo after dark. It’s gonna be the ASMR episode. Um, thank you to everyone who has been listening to our episodes and sharing, um, our social media posts. We really appreciate you. Thank you so much. Uh, before we start talking about episode 15, Alice, could you remind us what [00:01:00] happened last week?

Alice: Yeah. So last week on 9-1-1, Lucy saved a woman by dumb luck, who turned out to be a trauma surgeon. Eddie went to therapy, Buck drew a heart, and Athena yelled at a kid,

Ellen: drew her heart. That’s so cute.

Alice: He contributed last episode.

Bex: This week we are going to be discussing episode 15, which is called FOMO, and in this episode, the members of the 118 race to the rescue of a social media influencer when she has an accident in a sauna and then to an emergency at a reality show wedding, and finally a tragedy where a mother and her daughter go hiking.

There’s three kids there should be daughters,

Alice: just, just, just one of them

Ellen: daughters,

Alice: yeah.

Bex: Also not really hiking, although maybe their definition of what, what they consider hiking is different from what I consider hiking. Anyway. Meanwhile, Maddie worries that [00:02:00] she has missed too many firsts with Jee-Yun, May questions Athena’s career path. Okay? That’s one way of interpreting the storyline

Ellen: Questions her own career path.

Bex: Hen and Karen attempt to recapture the fun in their relationship. Also, that’s an interpretation. Who writes these summaries?

Alice: Things sure happened this week.

Bex: Um, triggers for this episode include fainting, uh, we have my favorite trigger of gore, um, specifically in this instance, a severe facial burn. And we have a minor character death.

Alice: We sure do,

Ellen: yes. So before we even start talking about this episode, we probably should say that there is very sad, um, I guess feelings in this one, um, that we’ll do our best to get through it.

Bex: It’s, but it’s not bad. It’s just, it hits emotionally so [00:03:00] hard.

Ellen: It hit they, they hit the emotional points so hard in this, like they pulled all the stops,

Alice: they really did, like, I think all three of us cried.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty hard.

Bex: They David Wallace’d way too close to the sun and for once it actually worked

Ellen: and ended up traumatizing everybody who watched it.

Alice: I remember when my mom watched it, she like took a break for like two weeks after this episode. ’cause she was like, I didn’t like that. And I’m like, yeah, no, I don’t blame you.

Ellen: No. So I guess anyone who like, okay, so spoiler warning it is this mother and her daughter. So anyone who’s ever lost like a family member or even someone, anyone who’s close to someone passed,

Alice: anyone who’s has a mother,

Ellen: anyone who’s

Bex: or a daughter, you are a mother or you have a mother, it’s, it’s gonna, it’s gonna sting,

Ellen: it’s, it’s just, it just hurts. Yeah. Yep.

Bex: But then the emotional whiplash of the rest of the episode is insane.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Other parts, like, some of it is just like, [00:04:00] really that I don’t think there’s anything that’s particularly hilarious in like, I guess what Hen and Karen get up to is pretty funny, but not in a, like, intentionally hilarious way, but like, yeah, the rest of it’s just kind of a bit flat, I guess, compared to,

Bex: but we can get into all of the like, meta discussion of the narrative after we finish discussion, the actual narrative.

Um, so we’re gonna start in the hills of LA where we’re watching a influencer’s live stream, and we actually start watching the live stream through, like, we see the, the chat window and all of the likes flying up. And this is, uh, Selene with a dollar sign at the end of it.

Alice: It’s like bb, no money, but it’s Selene money

Bex: Baby no money

Alice: Baby no money?

Bex: Baby no [00:05:00] money.

Alice: There you go.

Ellen: Yeah, she’s hold, like we eventually do see her like in, outside of the live stream and she’s got her phone like held out really far from her face so that she can show everyone what’s happening behind her as she walks backwards through this house basically.

Bex: Um, it’s on one of those like gimbal selfie sticks, like not the, the, the selfie stick that I think of is like the literal stick, but this is like, it’s got derive directional and its spins. It’s, but yeah, she’s got it on selfie stick.

Ellen: I didn’t look that closely at it.

Alice: It’s very fancy.

Ellen: It is a very nice looking house she’s got here. It’s very modern.

Bex: Yeah. So Selena’s live streaming because she is, she tells her loyal viewers she’s back in LA LA land because she just got the keys to her brand new house. Um, and she’s out the front of her house, which she calls the Barbie Dream House. Um. [00:06:00] I don’t know anybody.

Ellen: It doesn’t look anything like the Barbie Dream House

Alice: yeah. There’s no pink. It just, like

Bex: you say Barbie Dream House. I’m thinking pink. I’m thinking ultra girly. This is like Patrick Bateman’s. Um, it’s minimalistic,

Ellen: it’s concrete and glass basically. And

Bex: dark. Like it’s dark.

Ellen: Yeah. Black walls and yeah, it’s good. It’s lovely, like if you wanna live in a cold kind of slab, but um, yeah.

Bex: It’s not the dream house, it’s not a Barbie, it’s not Barbie’s Dream house. It’s like Barbie’s depression prison. But anyway,

Alice: yeah, Barbie would not vibe with this house, but sure.

Bex: No. Um, but Selene keeps going. She’s answering the questions in the chat, talking about how she has multiple different planes that she uses fly different places.

Um, and she shows off the interior of the house, like the kitchen where her private chef is going [00:07:00] to be cooking. Um, but she tells her viewers, oh, and, and then she takes them out to the back where there is a inbuilt pool and an amazing view of the observatory.

Ellen: Mm-hmm. It’s very nice. I, I, during this live stream, she apparently has changed or maybe we are looking at several different live streams as part of her,

Bex: I think

Ellen: tour.

Bex: I think she, um, she. Like she came into the house and then she got changed into her, um, swimwear so she could go out onto the, the pool. Um, and then she could go into the part of the house that she’s most excited about, which is the personal sauna.

Ellen: Yeah, it’s a huge sauna for like a personal sauna. You could fit like five people in there.

Alice: Yeah.

Bex: You, yeah, you could. Um, but while she is showing everyone the pool and showing everyone the sauna, there are construction noises happening in the background, which she [00:08:00] says to her viewers is construction on the new garage so that she can fit all of her new cars in her new house.

Ellen: I thought there was like, she starts, like, she puts the water on the hot rocks like you do in the sauna.

Bex: Mm-hmm.

Ellen: And she’s standing, or she’s sitting up on the top of the little benches there, but the ground, like the room starts shaking. And now I thought we were having another earthquake episode. Like

Alice: Yeah, I thought that like the door was gonna get jammed or something and she was gonna start overheating in there. Um,

Ellen: yeah.

Bex: Yeah.

Alice: It’s not what happens,

Bex: they never sort of explicitly say what’s going on, but there is a reference that the construction guys are doing something with the foundation. So I have a feeling that the construction is what’s shaking the entire house. Um,

Ellen: yeah.

Bex: But yeah, so she’s in the sauna. We do have to point out that even though she’s in like swimmers and a, uh, beach coverup, she’s still wearing [00:09:00] massive platform heels.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: So when she stands up on the little wooden bench, because the shaking and the rumbling is just getting like it. Interrupting her livestream. She’s sort of balancing on these, um, they like, they’re not stilettos, they’re quite thick heels, but I’m pretty sure that they’re still not, not easy to walk and walk and stand in.

So when the next kind of, uh, shaking hits, she’s knocked off balance. And unfortunately for her, she falls and immediately like hits her head hard enough that she’s unconscious for quite a long period of time and lands with her face, touching the rocks, the heated rocks in the sauna.

Alice: Yeah. She doesn’t even like try and stop herself. She just falls flat.

Ellen: Well, she hits her head on the way down, so I guess she’s out cold, but. [00:10:00] She’s out for.

Bex: Yeah,

Ellen: yeah. Until the firefighters get there

Bex: Yeah, but she’s so she’s out, she’s out until, um, the 118 get there. So that’s quite a while. That’s a very, very severe head injury.

Alice: Yeah. Yeah.

Bex: Um, I would be more concerned about the head injury than the, like the facial burns, but that’s just me. Anyway. Luckily for Selene, um, her live stream is still running, so everybody who was watching her stream saw her fall and we see in the chat window someone type the comment, oh my God, someone call 9-1-1

Alice: and call 9-1-1 they do,

Bex: apparently they all call.

Alice: Yeah. There’s like several people that call 9-1-1, but the problem is like, so they’re like, yeah, yeah. Like she was showing us a sauna. She fell and hit her head. She’s not moving. You have to send help. And May’s like, “yep, yep. Cool. We’ll be out as soon as we can. What’s the address?” Yeah, they don’t know ’cause they just saw it on the internet.

Ellen: Yeah, but it’s okay because May and [00:11:00] Eddie are on the case.

Bex: They work so well with on this. ’cause you’ve got,

Ellen: they do

Bex: May’s kind of, um, pop culture, social media knowledge. And then you’ve got Eddie’s just like old school practicality.

Ellen: They’re a bit of an odd couple. I don’t know. Seeing Mei talking to Eddie, I’m like, it makes Eddie feel like her dad. Like, I dunno. It just, it just feels strange to see them two working together.

Bex: Well, he, he’s what, almost twice her age. So

Alice: how old do you think Eddie is?

Bex: I said almost. So she May’s only what, 18?

Ellen: Tough. Keep us have a teenage son, right? No, hang on. How old is Chris now? 12. No, I don’t, I I can’t keep track of how old Chris is.

Bex: I still maintain that Eddie is older than Buck. So Buck is what? Early thirties in this season? Which would [00:12:00] make Eddie mid thirties.

Ellen: Yeah, that makes sense.

Bex: So if May is,

Alice: Eddie is mid thirties, I’m pretty sure he’s early thirties,

Bex: but he is, like I said, almost, we’re not going precise here.

Anyway, the odd couple work together and between, um, may looking through the, the photos that she’s captured of the livestream. The livestream, and, um, Eddie looking at maps and satellite imagery, they’re able to locate an address. Um, they also managed to locate her parents.

Ellen: Yeah. Apparently her mom saw the photo online somehow on a, you know, on a post somewhere.

Alice: Yeah, no. So Eddie posts it to the LA Fire department twitter.

Ellen: Yeah. So her mom shows up at, uh, the LAPD. Athena’s [00:13:00] trying to like tell them that she, they don’t know where she is. Like do you know where they, where she might be? And, um, mom just can’t work out what’s going on because, and, and the dad too, they’re like, this is not her.

Like, she’s not Selene, her name’s Rebecca. And apparently this chick has gone off to uni. But then, or sorry, she’s told her parents that she’s gone off to school and turns out she’s just become an influencer instead and just lied to them.

Bex: I still, I still think that she has gone off to college, but

Ellen: yeah,

Bex: she also just like, as a side job is doing this fake influencer thing, but that’s just

Ellen: fake influencer or is she actually, like, I didn’t sort of work out by the end of the episode whether she actually has all this money in this house, or is she just,

Bex: not, she definitely doesn’t have the

Alice: that’s house’s. No. She definitely doesn’t have the house.

Bex: And I’m gonna say by the [00:14:00] fact that, um, like she doesn’t even own her car. That she’s got a car that her parents bought for her because it’s registered in their name. Um, that everything is a lie.

Ellen: Mm-hmm. Well, so the parents, so the car is in the parents’ names, but they know what it looks like now. So they send the, um, fire department out to find this mini red mini Cooper. And for some reason the engines have their sirens on as they’re driving through the streets trying to find this car. I don’t really know if it’s that much of an emergency yet, but,

Bex: well, I guess it is.

Ellen: But they’re just driving through these suburban streets, like Yeah.

Bex: Looking for this car. Yeah. Lucy is the one to find it. Um. And I love that when she finds it. So she and Buck are in the back of the engine truck [00:15:00] and they’re supposed to be like Bucks looking out one side, Lucy’s looking out the other, but when she finds it, it’s on Buck’s side of the truck. And he looks so annoyed that she spotted it before he did.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: But it was, it’s well hidden and it is parked sort of behind a for sale sign, which belongs to that house. So the, they pull up, they get out, the crew start, um, gearing up and Bobby goes to talk to someone to get access to the house. There’s construction guys in the yard and he approaches the foreman and says, Hey, can we get inside?

There’s a girl trapped in a sauna. And the foreman’s like. What do you mean? This place is empty? We’ve been working on the foundation. There is nobody here, which is kind of, I love

Alice: that they didn’t notice the girl walking around in a bikini in heels. Yeah. Like, you know,

Ellen: like she was, she walked in at some point, like, and also out by the pool.

Bex: Yeah. But I have a feeling that she’s [00:16:00] been dodging them like they’re outside. So she went into the house. I don’t think these guys have come inside.

Alice: No, but she was outside at the pool for ages too.

Bex: Yeah. But the pool, I don’t think is where they are because she gets a little, like, she gets a little bit skittish when she hears the construction noises as if, oh shit, someone’s gonna see me.

And that’s when she kind of heads inside to show off the sauna. Um, like my, my interpretation of this is that she snuck into someone else’s house and she’s pretending that it’s hers. Anybody else?

Alice: Yeah. I’m assuming that she just saw the, like for sale, saw that it was empty and was just like, oh yeah. Fuck yeah.

Ellen: The audacity.

Bex: Uh, but the construction guys let their 118 in and they manage to find their way to the sauna. Um, and not only has, I mean, Alice, you said that you thought the door was going to jam and that was gonna to be the emergency.

Alice: It, it does somehow,

Bex: like stuck. The door [00:17:00] also jams. So not only is our poor girl like still lying on the sauna rocks, but the door has like shifted in its hinges or something and is now they cannot open it. So they need the saws and jaws to get it open. And I I love that Lucy is the go-to now for all of the, um, the badass stuff. Yeah. Like we need bulk, we need bulk cutters, we need saws, we need, um, chainsaws or anything. Lucy’s the one that does it.

Alice: Um, yeah, so they do indeed get the door off. And they also turn the power and gas off, I guess, to shut down the sauna.

But yeah, they, but they get in there to, to check her. So her pulse is steady. She’s got a pretty severe contusion of her head. Um, Chim’s like “most likely looking at a concussion.” Yeah. No shit,

Bex: dude. She’s been unconscious since she fell down. I don’t know how long it took you guys to get there, but she’s not woken [00:18:00] up the entire time. It’s gonna be more than a concussion.

Ellen: Mm-hmm.

Alice: Um, and she has third degree burns to 45% of her face. And this bit’s gnarly.

Bex: Oh

Ellen: yes. So gross.

Alice: So her face is like stuck on the rocks.

Bex: So they’re gonna need to debride to start separating the flesh from the rocks, which basically involves squirting saline over the wound to separate skin from rock.

And as Hen starts doing it, the foley guys add in a sizzle sound. Oh, as the saline is hitting, hitting the rocks and they cut to Bobby and Buck who are like screwing up their faces. And I don’t know whether it’s the sound or whether the smell is so, like someone said,

Alice: oh, I think, I think none of it’s fun.

Bex: Smells like burning flesh. I need you guys to react like, it’s like the worst ever cookout that you’ve ever [00:19:00] been to.

Ellen: But it’s also like the sound of like the rock being peeled off of face, which

Bex: it just, yes.

Ellen: Oh, it’s disgusting.

Bex: The foley guys went nuts. They loved this scene.

Alice: Yeah. You’re saying it’s the worst cookout ever. Like if, if this was Yellowjackets, they’d all be licking their lips by now, but, um,

Bex: yes.

Ellen: Does it involve cannibalism?

Alice: Oh yeah, that’s right. You haven’t seen Yellowjackets, have you?

Bex: Yes.

Ellen: Okay. Yes. Cool.

Bex: Well, it’s a. It’s a plane full of student athletes that goes down in the Canadian Rockies sort of area. I think that soccer team that, um, like their plane went down and they were not found for a while and they had to resort to some pretty gnarly ends to survive.

Ellen: Okay.

Bex: Nobody’s eating anybody in this episode though.

Alice: Not [00:20:00] in this episode.

Ellen: Thank goodness.

Bex: They do get, uh, Rebecca slash Selene off the rocks onto a gurney, um, and out to the rigs so they can get her to the hospital and specifically to a burn unit. And we cut back to May. Who gives Eddie the update that they, they found her and she’s on her way to said burn unit.

Um, and so they have a little bit of a, a heart to heart about, um. Why Rebecca might have done it.

Alice: Yeah. So Eddie sort of is like, oh, you know, “high price to pay for a living fake life. You think her regular life was that bad?” And May goes, “Maybe she felt like she was missing out on a life she could have had if she’d been born someone else or made different choices. Don’t you wonder about stuff like that?”

And Eddie goes, “Not really,” but then he immediately starts like, [00:21:00] draining a full bottle of water. Yeah, he’s, and looks really shifty about it.

Ellen: He looks, that’s totally not true.

Alice: No. Never think about different things. Not at all.

Ellen: He’s, he’s like, he’s the GIF of that little puppet, like doing the side eye, you know, like, no, not at all.

Alice: I sent Bex the, um, the GIF of Jesse from Breaking Bad drinking like the bottle of water.

Ellen: Oh, right.

Alice: Hang on, let me find it.

Bex: And the funny thing was that she sent me, um, that gif like five minutes before I got to this scene. So she’s posted the gif and I’m going, yeah, okay, that’s an interesting choice. We get to this scene. I’m like, oh, okay. Yeah, no, no, I understand. Carry on.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. So then May had this, I think this is part of the reason why Eddie had real dad energy in this scene because May then has to explain to him what FOMO means.

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: It’s like, “You know, FOMO.” And Eddie’s like, “what now?” And she’s like, “Fear of missing out?”

He’s like, “oh, [00:22:00] you make it sound like a sickness.” And uh, May says, “I guess it kind of is.” And he’s like, damn, my whole life is FOMO right now.

Alice: And he is like, yeah, I never, you know,

Ellen: I never feel that

Bex: wonder about the path left. What is it? The path less traveled.

Alice: Yeah. Have I done some things differently? Yeah.

Bex: Uh, from Eddie, definitely not suffering from FOMO. Uh, we go to the Han apartment where Maddie brings a very upset Jee-Yun inside. Uh

Ellen: oh.

Bex: She, uh, when Maddie, uh, tells Chim that he was right about the juice box, she squeezes them like stress balls. So Jee is probably upset because she’s covered in juice. She’s might be one of those kids who just doesn’t like being wet and she also has no juice to drink.[00:23:00]

Alice: Yeah. I think she’s more upset about the fact that she’s out of juice.

Bex: I do love the fact that Maddie comes in and just immediately hands the wet, cranky baby to Chim like, I’m done with her. It’s your turn.

Ellen: Yeah. And then, and then Jee like stops crying for a bit. She’s like, oh dad. Hi.

Bex: Yeah.

Ellen: Chim says, “poor little baby.” He’s so cute.

Bex: But now that Maddie has her hands free, she’s able to, um, examine the wooden box on the kitchen bench, which is Jee-Yun’s baby box. And I do love that they’ve, they’ve kept that Buckley tradition going, you know? Yeah. Maddie got a box. Buck didn’t really get one, but Maddie started one for him, and now she started one for Jee.

Oh. Well, Chim started one for Jee, somebody started one for Jee, but Chim has been adding to it. Um, he found some stuff from Boston that he wanted to put in there and um, it looks like [00:24:00] he’s stopped by a, um, like a photo printing place at some point. And just got all photos.

Alice: Yeah. He went to Kmart, it’s fine.

Bex: On his phone, printed. They don’t have Kmart in the US, not like we do.

Alice: Maybe does Target have a photo lab? Americans?

Ellen: Walmart probably does, like, I dunno,

Bex: I’m gonna assume it’s a Walmart or a Target has a photo printing lab. But yeah, just the, he’s gone and printed a whole bunch of the photos to put in the box. Um, and Maddie, it upsets Maddie because she’s, she’s got like physical proof in her hand of everything that she missed in those six months that she was away.

Um, and then she says “I missed so much.” And Chim tells her that that’s why he took all the photos because he wanted to document everything so that Maddie could catch up, which is really sweet. And she acknowledges sweet that [00:25:00] it’s really sweet. Um, but it’s, she’s still upset by it as she tells Buck over their lunch, dinner? It still looks pretty light out. I’m not sure.

Ellen: Yeah, I dunno. But yeah, she says that she was looking at the pictures and thinking that she should have been there, but Buck reassures her that basically she’s not a bad mother. She’s better now. You know, this is not the first kid that she raised.

Alice: Yeah. Buck’s basically like,

Bex: oh, it’s, it’s so cute,

Alice: yeah, “you were, you may miss, have missed six months, but my parents have missed the last 30 years, so, you know,”

Bex: which doesn’t reassure Maddie because she says, yeah, um, “you realize that something was seriously fucked up with our family and it haunted you your whole life. I don’t want Jee to be haunted her whole life like you were.”

Alice: ouch.

Bex: And she’s scared that by [00:26:00] leaving Jee for those six months that she scarred her for life and Buck tells her, “you haven’t scarred her. Do you know how I know that? Because Jee is not the first kid you raised. That was me.” And just gives her,

Ellen: “you raised me and look how I turned out. I’m fine!” And Maddie’s like, “yeah, totally.”

Alice: Maddie’s like, this is, this is making me feel so much worse.

Ellen: You’re the picture, picture of mental health.

Bex: It’s not exactly. Hey, compared to his husband, he is the picture of mental health in this episode.

Ellen: Right at the moment. Yes, definitely.

Bex: He’s Mr. Therapy. He doesn’t know what to do with said therapy. Um, but at least he’s having it and sort of knows he’s getting help, knows how to use. It’s he’s, yes. But it is very sweet that he sort of recognizes and shares with Maddie that he recognizes how much of an impact she had on him growing up.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: And then from that conversation about raising kids, we go to um, another mother-daughter [00:27:00] combo, which is the Grant women where Athena is apparently despairing about the fact that her daughter can’t feed herself and has brought over like a bag full of Tupperware containers and is stocking May’s fridge.

Alice: Oh, classic mothers. Honestly,

Bex: Some of, some of the containers. I wonder if it is leftovers, like it’s something Bobby’s cooked or Athena’s cooked and maybe she’s still used to cooking for four.

Alice: Oh yeah. That’s what mom, yeah, mom, mom always cooks for like 18 people, even though we’re only family of four.

Bex: Yeah. So she and Bobby are getting sick of eating the leftover, so she packages them up and brings them over to May’s. Yeah. And May’s like, you know, I can feed myself, but secretly she’s really happy because maybe she’s been missing Bobby’s cooking,

Ellen: but then she like randomly comes out with. “Do you ever think about life, what life would be like if you hadn’t met Emmett?” and Athena’s like, “What?”

Alice: Where’s this coming [00:28:00] from?

Bex: Can I just, before we launch into this, can I just make a quick note that I really appreciate that the writers did not have either Athena or May do a quick recap of like, who Emmett was.

Alice: I know for the first time ever, they’re just like, you know what? We don’t even have time for this shit. Let’s just talk about Emett. It’s like Emett.

Bex: Yeah. If you, it’s like, that’s good. If know who this dude is, you don’t, we don’t care. We are just gonna go with this scene. You can look it up later. You can go back and watch Athena begins. Um, we we’re just going to pick up that thread and move with it.

Ellen: No, that’s good because it makes it a much more realistic like conversation if they’re not like, yeah,

Alice: yeah. Instead of being like. Do you ever think what life ha would’ve been like if you hadn’t met Emmett, that cop that you almost married, who then was murdered? Like,

Bex: yeah, I mean, May does a little bit of, but it’s also, it’s kind of her interpretation of what she knows about Emmett’s story and it’s like a wildly um, different [00:29:00] interpretation of what we, as the audience know what happens.

’cause she says to Athena, you know, you had your whole life planned out for her because she knew that Athena wanted to be a lawyer, but she met a cute guy, dropped everything and became a police officer. Like, she followed a guy to the LAPD and Athena’s like, uh, excuse me. That is not what happened.

I didn’t follow no guy nowhere, except that’s kind of what she did.

Alice: Nuh-uh. Except you.

Bex: Yeah, they, you know, it’s like retconning, the retconning. Like, originally she was gonna be a cop because she wanted to, um, find out what happened to that little girl in her neighborhood.

And then she met Emmett and went, no, no, no, this is why I wanna be a cop. ’cause, you know, cute guy. Um, and now she’s saying, no, it was what I wanted to do.

Ellen: What does she say here? “It was a crazy idea that I’d been carrying around most of my life,” which I don’t know if that is a retcon, I don’t remember hearing about that [00:30:00] before.

Bex: Athena’s interpretation in this episode is that he taught her to be brave. To go after her dreams, and May kind of gets to the root of the reason that she’s brought this up. And like, “you never regret not becoming Miss Athena Carter, Esquire? And Athena’s like, “no, I am Athena. I’m Sergeant Athena Grant of the Los Angeles Police Department.”

She’s not Grant Nash. She’s, which I thought was really interesting. Like she is Athena Grant. When she is at work, Bobby and her marriage does not exist. That’s, I thought that was interesting.

Ellen: Yeah. You know, its a lot of hard work to change your name

Bex: over. It’s a hyphen and, and

Ellen: yeah,

Alice: I guess she wants to match the kids still? Who knows?

Bex: But I’m sure that we’ve, at some point we’ve heard her referred to as Grant Nash, but she still

Ellen: maybe

Bex: [00:31:00] identifies as just Athena or maybe like Athena Grant-Nash is Bobby’s wife, but when she’s a cop, she’s just Athena Grant.

Alice: She couldn’t, they didn’t wanna, um, pay for a new badge, so they’re just like, Nope.

Bex: Um, and Athena being the, you know, great detective that she is realizes that this line of questioning from May has a purpose and drags it out of her daughter that USC has contacted. May she apparently deferred her first year of college and now they, their college either needs her to accept her place or give it up and she doesn’t know what to do.

Ellen: Yeah. They can’t extend it any further. This is it.

Alice: Yep. She needs to make a decision

Bex: and she’s torn because

Ellen: Yeah, she doesn’t wanna give it up. The idea of like, [00:32:00] she doesn’t wanna give up the idea of attending USC forever,

Bex: but she also really likes her job and she has, like, there is motivation for why she took her job. It’s like, do I, do I keep doing my job for the reasons that I started doing this job and then give up on the idea of going to college and having that experience? Or do I give up, let go of the reasons that I was doing my job and do something different? And Athena just tells her to be brave and do the thing that you want to do.

Ellen: Yeah. That’s, that’s very helpful, Athena. Thanks.

Alice: Do we know what she wanted to attend USC for? Like had she chosen a major or anything? Or was she just

Bex: I don’t think so at this point.

Ellen: Don’t remember. I think they were just excited that she’d been accepted. I don’t know if, um, they actually discussed what she would do.

Bex: Don’t, you don’t necessarily [00:33:00] need to declare straight away.

Alice: No. I was just wondering if she actually like, ’cause you know, it’s like, okay, do I continue this job that does have a career path or do I go to university, which can also lead to a career path, but I don’t know what that is yet.

Bex: I honestly don’t remember. I mean, obviously having seen later episodes, we know what she decided to do in college. Um, but I don’t think at this point we know. So while May is thinking about what she’s going to do with her future, um, we cut to Below Zero LA which is, which is one of those ice restaurants where like it’s every, like, everything, it’s like an igloo, you’re eating inside an igloo.

Ellen: Yeah. Everything’s made of ice. And, uh, Hen Hen and Karen have been there for dinner and they did not enjoy it. Hen [00:34:00] says it might take all night for the feeling in her hands to come back.

Bex: I, they come out of the restaurant and they’re wearing like these giant floor length silver puffer coats, and they’re still freezing, like they’re still rubbing at their hands. Um,

Alice: as someone who had to brave the, um, the Australian 16 degree Celsius day today, I, I relate to this. Very cold.

Bex: I just like Karen’s saying, “it’s supposed to be a magical dining experience.” How magical can it be when you are wearing a puffer that somebody else is worn before you?

Ellen: Yeah,

Bex: that doesn’t, that doesn’t seem too magical to me. Um, so they get outta the restaurant and Karen is immediately on her phone and Hen um, is asking her whether she is, uh, texting her coworkers, who were the ones who recommended said restaurant. Um, [00:35:00] and Karen’s like, “no, I’m ordering Chinese food ’cause I’m still hungry.”

Ellen: This ice place was probably really expensive and they only had tiny little portions.

Bex: Oh, oh my god. You know that it was those tiny little, and it’s like the, um, deconstructed stuff as well. So it’s like a little mo, little blob of foam

Alice: and it would’ve been cold.

Ellen: Yeah. A little one leaf of like a lettuce leaf. Just a tiny little one.

Bex: Very, very carefully plated with like those long needle nose tweezers and ugh, no. And give me scallion pancakes and crispy noodles any day.

Alice: Mm-hmm.

Bex: Mm-hmm. Um, so from, you know, attending the, like the trendy ice restaurant, they’re gonna go home, get in their pajamas, eat Chinese food, and watch a moody British crime show.

Alice: They don’t even know which one. Just a moody British crime show.

Ellen: I love this conversation though, because Karen’s like, “The [00:36:00] one with the guilty couple or the innocent kid?” And Hen’s like, “I think there’s a submarine.” like what, what, what on earth have you got guys watching

Bex: Guilty Couple. I feel like that’s the, I feel like that was a reference to the David Tennant one, the one with him and

Ellen: I don’t know. He’s been a few British crime shows.

Bex: Uh, it’s the woman who plays the Queen and then they shipped one of them over to the US to do a US version of it.

Ellen: Oh, broad. Broadchurch.

Bex: Broadchurch. That’s it.

Ellen: That was, that was a really good show actually. I enjoyed that one.

Bex: It was really good.

Alice: Um, yeah, it’s Olivia Coleman. Come on people.

Bex: Yes. Olivia Coleman.

But their, um, their idyllic evening intakes a very dramatic turn because, um. Their car got robbed. They walk up to their car, discover the windows all smashed in. And Karen’s [00:37:00] purse, which was on the backseat, is no longer on the backseat.

Alice: Yeah. And Hen’s like you, you are wearing your purse. Karen’s like, “no, no. This is my cute little purse. It’s got my phone and, and a lipstick. I’m talking about my actual purse,”

Ellen: which she left in the car with her wallet in it.

Alice: Yep.

Bex: Yes.

Ellen: So now they have to go home, eat their Chinese in their pajamas, and call all the, the credit card companies and cancel everything.

Alice: Yep.

Bex: I’m slightly like the, the call all our credit card companies. How many credit, how many credit cards do they have?

Ellen: Have you got?

Alice: Yeah. How many different credit card companies do they have? But also like, call? Come on, there’s apps. Now this is 20, 21, 2, what year are we in?

Ellen: I think we’re up to 2022.

Alice: Yeah, there you go. There are apps now, you literally just push the button. Although America is a little bit behind. I don’t even think that they had, um, like [00:38:00] tapped to pay in 2022.

Bex: No, no, they didn’t. I think that’s a very recent addition to their whole banking system. Um, but yeah, it was more the how many credit cards do you have? That kind of threw me just because like I have no credit cards, so the idea of having multiple just scares me.

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: I don’t even carry a wallet anymore. Everything’s on my phone. Phone.

Ellen: No, I don’t either. I just take my phone.

Alice: Yeah,

Ellen: yeah. Anyway, onwards to MAFS.

Bex: Married At First Sight.

Ellen: I did not realize, I did not realize what was going on until like Bobby and them started talking about it. I just thought this was, it was this guy’s actual wedding day and.

This guy is super nervous. Like he looks great. He is looking in the mirror like making sure his, his, his tuxedos is right, and he looks terrified. Um, and this guy comes over and he is got [00:39:00] like a headset and everything. I’m like, wow, this is like some production for a wedding, but,

and he is like, “Are you okay? You ready? Are you sure you’re ready?” And the guy’s like, “Yep, yep. I’m good. You can, we can do this. Yeah, let’s do it.” Actually, you’ve got a note here that says that they’re walking, the bride’s walking down the aisle to the wedding march. Um, don’t they usually play that at the end? I’m like, that’s exactly what I thought.

I’m like, this is usually after they’re married.

Bex: Yes. Yes it is,

Ellen: but anyway, it’s fine. You can walk down the aisle to whatever song you want so

Bex: you can, yes.

Ellen: Each to their own. Or the music supervisor hasn’t, has thought like, we need the most recognizable wedding music that there is.

Bex: So why didn’t they use Wagner’s Bridal March?

Ellen: Why don’t they use, “here comes the bride”.

Bex: Yeah, exactly. Why didn’t they use it?

Alice: Maybe they couldn’t afford it.

Bex: It’s Wagner it’s, there’s no licensing. All classical music is free these days. Unless they

Alice: Not all of it. Yeah. Not the new stuff. [00:40:00]

Bex: Wagner is not new. Mendelsohn is not new. No. Although maybe you need to pay the license to the symphony orchestra that’s actually, although I think they’ve got like a, they had it as a string quartet.

Ellen: Yeah, it’s a quartet. Yeah.

Bex: Like the, so anyway, so the bride walks down the aisle. She looks beautiful. She’s wearing a veil that’s already been pulled back, which is kind of against the whole point of the veil, but I digress. Um, the groom is still looking incredibly nervous and like swiping sweat from his brow.

Ellen: Yeah, he’s very sweaty. He looks terror, absolutely terrified.

Bex: He looks, he doesn’t look good, and the, the bridesmaid kind of clocks him and gives him a very concerned look. Um, the bride gets to the top of the aisle, says hi to the groom.

The groom kind of whispers “hi” back and then just collapses

Alice: yeah, passes the fuck out.

Ellen: Oh. It’s a very dramatic collapse. Like he falls over, um, and hits a table that [00:41:00] has like a glass vase on it and it falls and smashes and he’s like,

Bex: yes.

Ellen: Flat out on the, on the ground.

Bex: Yeah. Uh, which prompts a…

Ellen: So yeah, the 9-1-1 call, “the groom just ruined the wedding!”

Bex: So of course, the 118 get dispatched and I love that the, the guy with the headset is doing the handover to Bobby, and it’s incredibly detailed, like down to the minute.

Alice: Oh yeah, down, like “The groom came in at 11. We did a final fitting on the suit, then a little shave and a haircut. He went to the groom room for breakfast. Tea, honey, plain bagel, toasted with butter.” It’s, yeah,

Bex: “We walked him down the aisle at one 15. He said he was fine. I, I called for action at 1 36. Bride started down the aisle at 1 42. Groom went down at 1 44.” And Hen’s like

Ellen: Bobby’s giving him this side eye like, okay, this is weird.

Bex: This, this is incredibly detailed. I don’t know how much of this I actually need. Hen’s more um, [00:42:00] caught up on the, “you called action for a wedding?” um, yeah. Buck has been looking around as they’ve been led through the event space out to where the groom is. And he’s clocking all of the guys with cameras and all of the PAs and all of the film crew sort of dotted around and he gets really excited. He’s like, “wait, I know what this is.”

Alice: He’s, but he’s like pointing and waving at the camera and he is so fucking cute.

Ellen: He’s so excited.

Bex: Funnily enough, he’s not the one who explains what the hell is going on. It’s Bobby. ’cause Bobby is the one that watches this show.

Alice: Yeah. Bobby’s like.

Bex: And it’s essentially MAFS.

Alice: It’s Speed Wedding. It’s MAFS, it’s Married At First Sight, um, which is. I don’t know if America would like calls it MAFS, but we just, we don’t even call it Married At First Sight anymore. It’s MAFS over here. Um,

Bex: Do America even have Married At First Sight?

Alice: But yeah, apparently it’s Speed Wedding. I, yeah, they must because they’re [00:43:00] parodying it on, this

Ellen: didn’t surprise me because there’s, there’s the same thing in every country, just with

Alice: Yeah, it’s like Love Island. It’s everywhere.

Bex: Apparently it started in Denmark.

Alice: Oh my God.

Ellen: Okay.

Bex: And then the, the Danish got the Danish show got sold out to everyone. So yes, the US does have a version. We have a version, I’m guessing pretty much every major country has a version. But yeah,

Alice: major country?

Bex: Uh, probably some of the minor ones as well. Um, anyway, so yes, Bobby and Athena like to watch MAFS to, uh to unwind at the end of the day,

Ellen: which is just hilarious. I mean, I, I see the ads for it on TV and I just go, that looks like absolute tripe. Like I did not have any desire to watch it.

Alice: No. I’ve got friends that watch [00:44:00] it, and even one of them didn’t watch this year because she was like, I can’t be bothered dealing with it.

Ellen: Yeah. I don’t know. But, um, but Buck is just, he loves it. Like, Hen can’t believe it. She’s like, this isn’t the links that people go to to justify their guilty pleasures and Buck’s like, no it’s

Alice: Buck’s like, it’s a sociological experiment, it’s like, yeah, no,

Bex: uh, Lucy

Ellen: Lucy’s also pretty down on it. Yeah.

Bex: But she’s down on marriage as an institution.

Alice: Yeah. She’s like, “it’s a crapshoot, like all marriages.” It’s like, oh, okay.

Bex: Interesting.

Alice: Mm-hmm.

Bex: Uh, so they finally, they make it to the groom who is, um, like, I would argue that he had a harder fall than Rebecca, but he’s starting to wake up already.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: So while Bobby and Hen are dealing with the groom, Lucy and Buck are having a discussion about the whole concept of [00:45:00] MAFS. Like how do they pick the couples and Buck, who must watch the show, um, says it’s, oh, it’s all based on compatibility tests. And Lucy’s like,

Alice: I’m sure he and Athena are tweeting it together.

Bex: Um, she’s like online quizzes. Yes. They’re taking Buzzfeed quizzes to work out who should marry each other. Um, so you’ve got Bobby and

Alice: it’s like, which character from The Pitt are you? And they’re like, oh, you both got Robbie. You’ll do.

Bex: Pick a color. Um, pick a, a location that you would like to spend your holiday. You are Samira. Um. So

Alice: Do you like being yelled at by your attendings?

Bex: Do you have a death wish? You are Dr. Rabinovich, um,

Alice: do you like yelling at people with death wishes?

Ellen: I have to watch the show just so I can understand the references.

Bex: Yes, you, it is a very, very good show. I do highly recommend it. Um, [00:46:00] so

Alice: this discussion’s just for Pigeon, shout out to Pigeon. Um,

Bex: Hen and Bobby are working on the groom. Buck and Lucy are discussing the show. The bride is watching all of this and she’s like, you know, “all good, all well and good, what y’all are doing, but you know, I am still getting married today. Right?” And Lucy just looks at her with absolute disdain and like, what’s the rush? And she’s like, “I cannot end up like my sister.”

And then literally turns and looks at the head bridesmaid and says, “a sad, lonely, middle-aged woman.”

Alice: And her sister’s just like, “I’m thirty-two.” It’s like, Jesus Christ.

Ellen: and the groom’s sort of sit trying to get up again. He is like, “No, I’m fine. I just wanna get married.” Hen’s like, no, you have a problem. Like, [00:47:00]

Bex: yeah. So the, the problem is that the groom is like all switcharoo-y on the inside. So his heart’s on, well, that’s not what’s wrong with him. What’s wrong with him is that, um, he has cardiac, cardiac tamponade, so he’s bleeding into the sack around his heart for reasons unknown.

But what’s really interesting is that his heart is on the other side of the body than it is supposed to be.

Ellen: Yeah, I hadn’t heard of this before.

Alice: Uh, Hen says that the spleen, his spleen was on the right side instead. And Buck’s like “heart on the right spleen on the right, they’re supposed to be on the left.” It’s like, good job, Buck. Proud of you.

Bex: Hey, he,

Ellen: he learned some stuff.

Bex: Took Christopher’s homework seriously.

Alice: He really did.

Bex: Once he realized that, that he did wrong,

Ellen: he knows about hearts now,

Bex: yes, he locked in and he learned something. Um, but Hen is not a [00:48:00] hundred percent sure, and this is apparently very rare.

It’s only one in 10,000 people present with this condition called Dexacardia. Um, and if Hen is wrong and she tries to, um, drain the blood from the sack around the heart in order to allow the heart to beat properly, and she is wrong, she will puncture this dude’s lung. And she said, well, I don’t plan on being wrong today.

Uh, but you know, she went to med school. She knows shit. Um,

Alice: she’s still in med school.

Bex: Theoretically. We haven’t heard anything about med school. Like when was the last time, time we got a reference

Ellen: to her

it’s been a really long time

Bex: being in med school?

Ellen: Yeah. Ages the start of the season. Pretty much.

Bex: Like she’s not toting around giant textbooks anymore. Like is she even studying?

Ellen: No, she’s going out and catching, catching bad guys with, um, Karen.

Bex: Wait. Yeah. How does she [00:49:00] have time to do that? If she’s in med school and working?

Alice: She’s in med school.

Bex: Fulltime job and raising kids

Alice: because she also forgot she was in med school. Okay. Maybe it’s summer break.

Ellen: Maybe

Alice: Spring break?

Bex: Um,

Alice: what season are we in?

Bex: We did get a date in the last episode. I don’t know. I think the writers just honestly forgot that she’s in med school.

Alice: Oh, they absolutely, they a hundred percent forgot.

Ellen: I mean, it, it aired at the end of April. So it could have been spring break, I guess. Spring break.

Alice: Yeah. It,

Bex: I, I don’t know. Anyway, uh, she is not wrong. She sticks the needle in, she pulls back the, um, the plunger and it starts to fill with blood and the heart rate monitor, which was flatlining, um, suddenly starts producing a sinus rhythm or recording a sinus rhythm. So she was correct. The dude is fine.

Ellen: Everyone cheers,

Bex: and as they’re wheeling him out, back out to the ambulance, the, um, production assistant who had been keeping them all [00:50:00] in the loop suddenly runs up and he is got like an arm full of clipboards and he is like, “great. I’m so glad that the groom is okay. I’m gonna need you to sign these releases on your way out so we can air the footage.” ’cause the camera crew kept filming the entire time.

Ellen: Yeah. It shows the cameramen like, like going over their shoulders to kind of see what they’re doing.

Bex: Yeah,

Alice: yeah. Buck’s like, “fuck yes, let’s go.” And everyone else is like, “no.” And Buck’s like, “yeah, no.”

Ellen: He looks really disappointed.

Bex: He really does. Um, but then what’s even funnier is like Hen was absolutely shitting on the show. We then cut to the Wilson household later that night where they’re in bed watching the show, which I’m, I’m gonna say that she came home, she told Karen all about the emergency and Karen was curious and decided to watch the show.

And she’s now addicted to it. ’cause she’s like, this is a [00:51:00] car crash in slow motion. Let’s watch the finale.

Alice: How quickly is it airing?

Bex: I don’t think that’s the, I think that this is a past episode. It’s not the one that they literally just,

Alice: yeah, maybe they’re watching on catch up.

Ellen: No, they’re different people. Yeah. And, and before earlier, um, Buck had said that the compatibility score was science. And here Karen says, “this is not science. It’s more like a car crash.”

Bex: She’s like, numbers aren’t everything. And Hen’s like “Yeah, says the scientist.”

Alice: Yeah, exactly. Karen is a scientist,

Bex: so she wants to watch the finale because she swears that the couple that they just watched to get married are not gonna make it. And she wants to see that she’s right.

Um, Hen’s like too, “I’m too tired. Let’s, you know, watch it tomorrow.” And Karen’s like, “you know, actually tomorrow I wanna go back out because my coworkers told me about this like digital art walk thing that’s happening. Um, and it [00:52:00] sounds like, it sounds like fun. I wanna go and have some fun.” And the, the gist of this whole conversation is that Karen feels old.

Ellen: Yeah. All her coworkers are much younger than her, and they always do fun stuff. So she wants to do fun stuff too.

Bex: Yes.

Ellen: And Hen’s like, okay, I guess we can do that.

Bex: Yeah. Karen says that her coworkers work hard and play hard. They’re making the most of their lives. And you know, don’t get her wrong, she loves having tea parties with the foster kids and watching moody British TV shows and like MAFS

Ellen: and MAFS. Yeah.

Bex: In their pajamas in bed with Hen. But she, even when she was her coworkers age that they are now, she was never that person. She wasn’t the work hard party, hard. She was work hard, work harder. And she’s wondering what she’s missed out on. So she’s got like a serious case of FOMO. She’s trying to reclaim her youth [00:53:00] by going out and having adventures.

Ellen: Mm-hmm. So naturally, um, Hen immediately spills the tea to the rest of the team in the truck the next day.

Bex: I do like the way that we get like a character in a situation. So it happened with Maddie, like Maddie has this conversation with Chim and that immediately we cut to her telling Buck about it. And then we have this conversation with Karen and Hen and then Hen is immediately telling the team about it. It’s like, it’s a really nice transition throughout the episode.

Ellen: Well, it’s, it’s a good mechanism for letting the character, you know, immediately download their own thoughts, you know, like, this has just happened and this is how I feel about it.

Bex: Yeah.

Ellen: Um, she couldn’t really tell Karen what she really thought about it, but then she gets to tell the others.

Bex: Yeah. And it’s a very natural way to, to continue the conversation as well.

Ellen: Yeah. [00:54:00]

Bex: So Chim sums the entire thing up with “Karen wants to be 20 again,” which then brings up a conversation for everyone in the truck. Would they wanna be 20 again?

Ellen: Yeah. And most people say no.

Bex: Bobby says no because it wouldn’t matter even if he went back with twenties because he would still end up exactly where he was. Because for him there was only ever one choice to be a firefighter. ’cause he’s a legacy. Buck is the,

Ellen: I’m thinking like Supernatural now.

Bex: Buck is, Buck is the hilarious ’cause. He is like, “you know what? Crypto, I kind of wish I got in crypto when that started because you would be set for life if you’d bought into crypto like back then.”

And Lucy’s looking at him like, Lucy has no idea who this kid is. She’s like., “That’s your big regret in life?” And Buck’s like, “I mean, I basically did everything else beca before I became a firefighter. So now [00:55:00] I feel pretty good about my twenties.”

Alice: Oh, Buck thinks he did everything in his twenties.

Bex: Ey-o.

Ellen: You still got some things to discover about yourself, Buck, don’t worry.

Alice: Buck’s gonna learn some things in two years. Um, but yeah, then Buck goes, “oh, Hen do you think Karen’s just going through a midlife crisis?” And Hen’s, like, “How fucking old do you think I am, child?”,

Bex: Her exact quote is, “when did I become middle aged?” And Buck’s like, “Well, you know, because life expectancy for women is like in their eighties, therefore.”

Ellen: Oh yeah. He just digs himself in a deeper hole.

Bex: “You’re, if you’re, if you’re 40, then you are like, you’re in middle aged,” and Lucy’s like, “if you keep talking, this is gonna be your biggest regret in life.”

Alice: Or what’s left of it.

Bex: Um, uh, daddy Bobby steps in to break up the fight before, [00:56:00] um, Hen kills Buck and just says, you know, “is it possible that you are overthinking what Karen is, is saying and, and wanting and expressing?” And Hen’s like, “I mean, she seemed pretty worried that she’s missed out on something important. I don’t know how to fix that.”

And then Chim brings down the whole mood in the engine by saying that you can’t, no matter how much we wish we could, there is no such thing as making up for lost time. Oh my God, I just realized the link with this episode and the, the mother and daughter emergency.

Ellen: What, making up lost time or no?

Bex: Yeah. No, because No. ’cause like when I was thinking about this episode, I was trying to figure out why the daughter, the mother and daughter emergency was in this one. ’cause it didn’t seem to fit. ’cause everybody else in the episode was dealing with FOMO. Like Maddie’s dealing with FOMO, Karen’s dealing with FOMO, MA’s dealing with [00:57:00] FOMO.

And I’m like, but the mother and and daughters weren’t really dealing with FOMO, but that’s not it. It’s the making up for lost time. That’s the link.

Ellen: Yeah. It’s because they don’t get to spend any time with their mom and their

Bex: No, it’s because, because like it will continue and we’ll discuss the scene, but fuck, that was the link and it’s a fucking depressing link.

Alice: Yep.

Bex: So yeah, from Chim saying there’s no such thing as making up for lost time, um, we cut to a mother and her three daughters, summary writer. She has three daughters, um, on some kind of birdwatching nature hike walk thing.

Ellen: Yeah, it’s a pretty spot. They just like above the ocean kind of on some hills, I guess

Bex: it is apparently

Ellen: grassy kind of hills

Bex: Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, California.

Ellen: Oh, okay. ‘

Bex: cause yes, I, I did a reverse Google image search.

Alice: Nice.

Ellen: So [00:58:00] how far away from LA is this like, like from, ‘ cause the 118 are going far out of their zone again, apparently,

Bex: I don’t know how far San Pedro is in relation to where the 118’s house is, ’cause we never actually figure out where the 118’s house is.

Um, so anybody who is listening, who knows Los Angeles, like California, like geo geography, um, let us know. Is it within the realm of possibility that LAFD house 118 would have been called to San Pedro? Or are they just, it’s one of these things where they go everywhere except Disneyland again.

Ellen: There’s the airport there. Okay. It’s down in the south of the city-ish. Uh, okay. Yeah. That’s pretty far away from other places they’ve been, anyway, it doesn’t matter.

Bex: They go everywhere except Disneyland.

Alice: They sure do. Yeah. They don’t go to Anaheim. It’s so far from San the Santa Monica. [00:59:00] Oh. I guess they weren’t actually called out to the Santa Monica Pier. So that’s,

Ellen: yeah, that was like a special thing. It’s a really long way from Big Bear. Um,

I don’t know. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Um, the mom and the eldest daughter sort of hang back while the two little ones run ahead and they have a bit of a heart to heart about how, you know, this is their time with their mom because they live with their dad most of the time and the mom’s never there when the kid wants her.

The mom’s like, “I’m just a phone call away.” and then they, they catch up with the others and they found this like, so this is the historic fort here. It’s like a ruined kind of fort.

Bex: So this is

Ellen: concrete structure.

Bex: What, this is what Google tells me is Battery Osgoode Farley, which is part of the historic port MacArthur.

So [01:00:00] basically the, a battery was fixed fortification along the coast, so there used to be cannons in that, um, little concrete part that sort of poked down over the top and could be used to fire at ships approaching off the coast.

Ellen: Yep.

Bex: So it’s part of their coastal defense. Uh, anyway, so the daughters go down into the, um, the structure and they are playing tag playing, chasing around the bottom.

Um, and the eldest sister, Elena joins in, she starts running, and then she takes a step and her foot goes through something and she looks over at her mum and her mother immediately reacts by running over and pushing her daughter out of the way, just in time for the ground to collapse from underneath her and sent her plummeting down into what we later find out is some kind of like missile silo that, um, they boarded [01:01:00] over.

Ellen: Oh gosh.

Bex: And the boards have rotted.

Ellen: Yeah. And she’s so far down they can’t see anything or they, and when they call out, they can’t hear any reply. So,

Bex: so they take a two-pronged approach. Um, chimney and Hen are going down the silo, down the way the mother fell, um, with ropes and harnesses while Buck and Lucy, Lucy has discovered, uh, a gate that is sealing off a tunnel, um, that she thinks would lead down to where the mum is. So they’re gonna try and open that gate and go through that way and hopefully meet up with Hen and Chim underground somewhere. Um, and Bobby is on kid wrangling duty,

Ellen: actually the kids are very, um, uh, I guess they’re in tears, but they’re calm about the whole thing. Like they just sort of, it looks like they just called 9-1-1 and then hung around there, um, waiting for them to arrive. Like,

Alice: yeah, [01:02:00] I guess they’re like, oh, the, you know, the, the firefighters are here now. They’ll save mom.

Ellen: Oh yeah. But like before that they had to wait for them to arrive, you know, like they’ve,

Alice: yeah.

Ellen: They stay calm.

Bex: I have a feeling that the, the eldest daughter is doing a lot of parenting in this, this point. Yeah. Keeping her sisters calm. Mm-hmm. Um, I do like the way that they have structured this scene as well because they use Bobby and the kids as the way to, um structure, setting up the scene. So as he’s explaining to the kids, like, this is why we’ve got the ladder extended over the silo, um, as he explains it, we cut to what they’re actually doing and she says, so you’re gonna, then the daughter asks, “So you’re gonna use the ropes from the ladder to go down?”

And he is like, no, no, no. “We’re gonna, we’re also gonna go in another way.” And then we cut to Lucy with the bolt cutters getting the gate open.

Alice: Yeah.

Bex: So it’s, it’s just a really nice way of not [01:03:00] necessarily having like exposition captain just shouting orders and telling them what to do. It’s a very, um, natural way to explain what’s happening in the scene.

Ellen: Yep. Yeah, it’s well done.

Bex: So Hen and Chim go down, and I love that Hen gets to use a harness rope because she doesn’t usually get to do the badass stuff like this.

Alice: Yeah.

Bex: So she and Chim get down. They find the mum and she’s not good. Oh, she’s conscious, but she’s like not moving. There is a big puddle of blood under her head.

And there’s a gnarly open fracture on her leg.

Ellen: Yeah. And she’s asking for the kids, and then they’re like, no, no. We, we, we will see them at, when they get back to the surface, like they’re fine. They’re just up there.

Alice: So she’s got, um, her heart rate’s way up, but the blood pressure’s really low. Um, the mom says she can’t feel much [01:04:00] and he says it’s likely a pelvic fracture, abdomen’s warm to the touch, bellies full of blood,

Bex: and then the mum starts coughing up blood.

She realizes that she’s not gonna make it. And Hen and Chim are trying really hard not to like, give her false hope, but just trying to keep her like we, we can’t tell you that we need to get you to the hospital. They’ll be able to assess you. Um, we can’t tell, despite the fact that I can look at someone and figure out that they are organs on the wrong side of the body. I’m not going to tell you what is wrong with you right now. Um,

Ellen: yeah.

Bex: And so then this is the link because the mother has accepted at this point that she’s not gonna make it. And she says to Chim and Hen that it was so dumb being out there trying to make up the lost time and there’s the link.

Ellen: Mm-hmm.

Bex: And again, Chim and Hen are trying to [01:05:00] like, keep her spirits up, trying to get her out and she’s like, I need to talk to my kids. I really need to talk to them right now. So using Chim’s radio and Bobby’s radio, the mom talks to her kids one last time.

Ellen: Oh man. And then we all start crying because Oh, so sad.

Bex: I was, I was okay until the needle drop.

Ellen: Oh, yeah. So that made it like 10 times worse.

Bex: Yeah.

Ellen: But yeah,

Bex: so they, they put the kids on the radio and the mother, as they’re, they’re getting the, the radio sorted up, Buck and Lucy arrive and Hen immediately just stops them from like, barreling in and Buck’s like, “I thought we were going to be moving her.” Um, and Han’s like, “no, we’re not, we’re not moving her right now.” Lucy puts two and [01:06:00] two together and tells the audience for those of us who haven’t put it together, that she doesn’t, the mother doesn’t think she’s getting out of here.

Alice: Yeah.

Bex: So mom talks to her kids and she makes sure that they’re okay. And then she says that she knows that it’s hard when they are apart, but the secret is that she’s always with them. Even when you can’t see her. Um, “whenever you are sad or alone, just reach for each other and then you’ll feel me with you.” And the little, the little daughters are just, you know, happy to hear their mom’s voice.

The oldest daughter is far too smart for her own good, and she realizes what’s going on. She like, she realizes that her mother is saying goodbye and she’s like, “but you know, we are gonna see you soon. Right?” And like the mom gets this message out. And then immediately passes [01:07:00] away.

Ellen: Yeah. And like all the guys down in the, in the hole with her all, you know, in tears. But

Bex: yeah.

Ellen: Uh, they bring her up. I don’t, I’m not sure. So they strap her to a, the backboard, but rather than carry her up the stairs and through the tunnel, they winch her out on the ropes. Is that what happens?

Bex: You No, they walk her through the tu they walk her through the tunnel. So they take her back.

Ellen: Oh, okay.

Bex: The way Buck and Lucy came, but because what really like really grabs your heart and twists it is, um, as Chim tells Buck, they are not going to tell the kids what’s happened to their mother. They are going to transport her to the hospital. They’re gonna take the kids to the hospital, and then they’re gonna let their dad break the news.

So they strap her to the backboard. They put a blanket over her body so that the kids can’t see any of her injuries. And then to continue the illusion, they put an O2 mask [01:08:00] on her to make it seem like she’s just asleep.

Ellen: Hmm.

Bex: And then they very, shit, I’m gonna start crying just talking about it.

Alice: It’s, yeah.

Bex: And they very solemnly carry her.

Ellen: The music is very

Bex: up to the surface. While there’s this very slow, very emotional, um, “You Are My Sunshine” starts playing.

Ellen: And it’s the sad version of “You Are My Sunshine”.

Bex: It’s,

Alice: Yeah, “You Are My Sunshine’s” already sad. And it’s the sadder version. Like

Ellen: yeah, the saddest,

Bex: it’s the saddest version they could find of this song starts to play as they, and they,

Alice: like the music supervisor literally just Googled saddest version, “You Are My Sunshine”. And was just like, fuck yeah. This is what we’re gonna use

Ellen: sad music for people dying. This is what came up.

Alice: Um,

Ellen: but it’s beautiful, but also like, oh my God, oh my God. Just rips your heart out and stomps on it.

Alice: It’s so and so they’re putting, they’re putting mom in the ambulance and [01:09:00] they load the kids into the firetruck and like Lucy and Buck are making it a big deal.

Like, “oh, you get to ride in the firetruck. This is where the cool kids go.” They’re giving ’em helmets to wear. Um, like “it’s okay. We’re on the way to the hospital now,” but the oldest knows what’s going on.

Bex: And then at some point during the trip, one of the girls realizes that the sirens aren’t on, and she looks around and she says, “why aren’t the sirens on?”

And you can just see the smile slip from everybody’s face. And yeah, Bobby’s like, shit, how do I explain this? When the older sister Elena, who has just been like disassociating out the window the entire time, um, comes back, switches back on, turns to her sister and says, “mom doesn’t need them anymore.” [01:10:00] And the little girls are like, oh.

At which point I am literally like sobbing, like not just tears rolling down my cheeks, but full on chest heaving sobs.

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: Oh yeah. Well. Yeah, I don’t think they quite know what’s, what’s happening yet, but they have, they stop smiling and, uh, being excited to be in the firetruck then. So I

Bex: think they realize, I think everyone kind realizes something that Yeah.

That the sirens are when it’s an emergency and if there’s no sirens, it’s no longer an emergency anymore. And then the, the scene ends with just the music continuing to play and we just see the, the procession of the trucks and the ambulance heading back out of the park.

Ellen: Mm-hmm.

Bex: And I’m like holding fistfuls of tissues in my hands.

Ellen: No.

Alice: [01:11:00] Yep.

Ellen: Yeah, it was rough. But then we do, um, get the emotional whiplash. After this we, uh, they did, they did cut to a commercial after this. So at least the people who watched it live got to have a little bit of a re regroup of themselves before the next part.

Alice: Yeah, they got to, they got to watch the weird American medication ads. Yeah. There was one on today. Um, ’cause I was watching season nine live. Um, there was one today that was like, do not take if you’re allergic. And I’m like, it the why do you, do you really have to say that? Really?

Bex: Yes.

Alice: Like obviously they’re

Bex: really,

Alice: like when they advertise pizza, they’re not like, oh, don’t take if you’re allergic. Like what?

Bex: But my question is how do you know if you’re allergic to it?

Alice: Yeah. Right?

Ellen: Yes. After the commercial we go, we’re going back to, um, dispatch to talk about Selene slash Rebecca. So bit of a bit of a change in tone. Uh, it is a little bit, uh, like [01:12:00] No, I was gonna say it is a little bit somber, but it’s not really ’cause Selene, Rebecca. Rebecca is fine. She’s in hospital giving another live stream while May and Eddie are watching it. Um,

Bex: but she’s rebranded. She’s now, um, rather than Selene dollar sign, she’s now 100% Rebecca.

Ellen: Yeah. She’s got her family, friends. Those are the most important things. Don’t live your life for anyone else.

Bex: Yes. Don’t worry so much about what you’re missing out on. Um, which Eddie says was unexpectedly deep.

Ellen: Yeah. It took her, it took a near death experience for her to appreciate her actual life.

Bex: That’s, that’s what May thinks anyway.

Ellen: Yeah, that’s what May thinks. And it’s, that’s also unexpectedly deep. So Eddie is just confused all round and he is like, “Are you okay?”

Bex: Yeah. It kind of switches into dad mode here. [01:13:00] Yeah. Um, and May is sort of confesses that she wonders if she’s living her life for herself, um, because she sort of explains why she started working at dispatch and Eddie’s like, “there’s nothing wrong with doing what you did.” And she said, “yes. But before that I wanted to be someone, a very specific someone and I feel like I’m losing that version of myself that I thought I was gonna be.”

And Eddie very profoundly says, “Well, trauma often turn, often causes us to turn inward.”

Ellen: Hey, he learned a thing at, uh, at therapy.

Alice: He did.

Bex: He learned something and May looks at him like he suddenly spouted ancient, um, Aramaic. He’s like, “yeah, I, therapy. The therapy is rubbing off on me.” Um, but he, um, he says [01:14:00] that he tells May that he understands the motivation to hide in a place where you could feel safe and keep your family safe.

And he really does understand that motivation. ’cause isn’t that exactly why he is in dispatch right now?

Ellen: That is what he’s doing himself. Hopefully he’s learning something from this too,

Bex: but May says, “does that make me a coward?” And he says, well, I don’t think cowards usually answer that, answer that question or ask that question of themselves.

Um, but you, you can, he’s probably internalizing that as well. Like, oh, am I being a coward too?

Ellen: Yeah. And May says, “how do I get back to that person I wanted to be?” And Eddie’s like, I don’t know. Please tell me. No, he actually says, “I’ll let you know when I figure that out.”

Bex: I wonder who Edmundo thought he was gonna be and like, how far back are we going? Like, are we talking?

Ellen: Oh, I just assume he was who he was. He was [01:15:00] talking about being a firefighter and now he’s not anymore kind of thing.

Bex: Yeah. No, no, no. That’s, that’s also kind of what I’m like, is he talking about like going back three months to like the person he was before when he was a firefighter? Or is he going like way back to when he was 17 before Shannon got pregnant? Like

Alice: Yeah. Before he became a dad?

Bex: Yeah.

Ellen: Or before he

Bex: like who

Ellen: went to the army, went to war.

Bex: Yeah. If that had never, there’s a thick idea. If that had never happened, who would Edmundo Diaz be?

Alice: I’m sure there are fics about it.

Bex: I am sure they’re, and they all end up within fucking Buck in one way or another, regardless of what they did.

Ellen: Yep.

Bex: All roads lead back to Buck in fanfic.

Ellen: Uhhuh.

Bex: Yeah.

Alice: Obviously

Ellen: naturally.

Alice: Why else would, why else would fanfic be a thing?

Bex: Unfortunately, not in this episode, though. In this episode, um, we do go to a bedroom, but it’s the Wilson bedroom [01:16:00] where um, nobody is fucking, um, Karen is too tired. I feel like we

Ellen: Yeah, but Hen thought they were gonna go out.

Bex: She did. Uh, but that was before Karen made 87 cupcakes and then ate three of them. No, she made 90 cupcakes. She made 90 cupcakes. And she ate three of them.

Ellen: I love that. She’s like “87 cupcakes. I know that’s an odd number. I ate them” so good. I love her.

Bex: Justice Hen is about to, I don’t know, scold Karen for eating the cupcakes or try to jolly her out of bed to go on this digital art walk or have some kind of heart to heart about FOMO and everything like that.

Um, she gets a notification on her phone that one of her credit cards is being used at a club. And Karen’s like, “what card? We canceled them all?” Um, no, because apparently some of Hen’s cards were in [01:17:00] Karen’s wallet, so now they’re using Hen’s cards as well. And they hadn’t canceled all of hers and Hen’s like, it’s fine.

I don’t understand why she’s getting a notification that they suspect this is fraud unless the, it’s because of the fact that Hen’s charges are usually like subscription services, Chinese takeout, and they’ve gone, oh, Henrietta Wilson is at a bar on a school night? Yeah, this can’t be real

Ellen: at a nightclub? Yeah.

Bex: So, um, so she says, “that’s fine, I’ll just decline the charge and mark as fraud.” And this little light bulb goes up above Karen’s head and she’s like, “no, wait.” And she leaps outta bed. She’s like, “tell Toni we’re going out. I’m gonna go change.” Um, and Hen’s like looking at the, this. Like the smoke outline where her wife used to be.

It’s like, “Where are we going?” Karen’s like “To catch a thief!” [01:18:00] so they rock up to the bar that the, um,

Ellen: this is funny ’cause Hen’s like I’m used, I’m used to this shit with Athena, but like, do, who is this person and what have you done with my wife?

Bex: She’s never seen this side of Karen before. Um, so yeah, so they’re going to, uh, find the person who has he’s card and make a citizen arrest.

Um, so they go to the bar and Karen requests to close out Henrietta Wilson’s tab and the bartender’s like no problem. Goes and gets the, um, the bill and also Hen’s, Henrietta Wilson, and I’m using like bunny ears at this point. Air quotes, um, Henrietta Wilson’s card and driver’s license, but then she holds up the license and realizes that the photo on the license that doesn’t look like Karen.

Because the quote unquote Henrietta Wilson that opened the bar is a 22, 20 2-year-old white girl. Not either a bald, bald Black woman or a [01:19:00] Black woman with dreads.

Ellen: Mm-hmm.

Bex: And so the bartender’s like, “wait, you are not Henrietta Wilson,” and Karen snatches the license and goes, “Nope, but neither is that girl.”

So Hen steps forward and shows her actual driver’s license and says like, “I’m Henrietta Wilson, it’s nice to meet you.” The bartender is so confused. She’s like,

Ellen: the bartender goes and you, “no, I’m Henrietta Wilson.”

Bex: The whole club starts going, I’m Henrietta Wilson. No bartend bartender calls for her manager because if anything goes sideways, she’s gonna get blamed for this.

Um, meanwhile, Hen and Karen are searching the very spaced out, um, dance floor for the quote unquote Henrietta Wilson.

Ellen: Yeah, there aren’t that many people in this club.

Bex: I’m used to clubs,

Ellen: but none of them, none of them, none of them are this girl

Bex: packed in like [01:20:00] sardines. I’ve never have been to a club where you could easily walk around groups of people like this.

Ellen: It depends what time you go, I guess. Uh, if it’s, this is earlier than like, I don’t know what time, like Karen decided she wanted to go to bed this particular night, but it could be earlier than the big crowds. I guess

Bex: if I’d really cared, I could have zoomed in to see if there was a timestamp on the notification that Hen got that I didn’t. I was struggling to see the screen through my tears at this point. So, um,

Ellen: we need to see what she’s doing with the id, so they need to be a bit spread out.

Bex: No, I understand that for shooting purposes they need to have everyone spread out. It’s fine. It’s just not realistic. Um, so they start searching the crowd Hen’s, using the torch on her, um, phone to like shine in everyone’s faces.

And then Karen is holding the license [01:21:00] up next to their faces and comparing the photos to see if they can find them. And, uh, it’s, it, it’s not working. They’re not finding her until they suddenly do find her.

Alice: Yeah,

Ellen: yeah.

Alice: They’re literally just going up to every blonde woman and being like, aha, nevermind. Ah, no.

Ellen: And, and they’re all giving them like these death glares to say like, what the hell are you doing? Shining this light on the face.

Bex: A bit, a little bit of commentary there that like all white blonde women look the same. Um,

Alice: yeah.

Bex: They can’t tell the difference between all of them, um, until a another like blonde white woman, clearly drunk, starts stumbling past them, heading toward the bar.

Um, and she looks closer to her photo than anybody else in the club has so far. So Karen literally grabs her by the arm and stops her, and she’s like, “Hey, who the hell are you?” [01:22:00] And Hen’s like “Henrietta Wilson, who are you?” And Hen the fake Hen is like, oh shit. She refuses to tell Hen and Karen her name, but Hen, uh, takes the license off Karen and realizes that the person who stole her card has just like put a sticker over the top of her actual driver’s license.

Alice: That’s so weird.

Bex: So she just sort of, she’s like, yeah, rubs, rubs away the Henrietta Wilson part on the driver’s license to reveal the actual name of the license holder, which is, um, her name is

Alice: Klowee.

Bex: Chloe spelled with K-L-O-W-E-E. And it hurt me every time I had to type that out.

Ellen: I mean, look, we can’t, can’t be making fun of people with funny spellings these days because they’re everywhere. Everyone has a funny spelling these days. [01:23:00]

Alice: Can I just love that Karen’s like “what kind idiot picks that spelling?” And Klowee’s like, “my mom?” Like,

Ellen: yeah, because

Bex: like Chloe is C-H-L-O-E. It’s four letters. This is

Alice: five,

Bex: six letters. Like she’s added extra letters and made it like, it looks like Clow-ee. If I saw that on, if I, if somebody handed me a piece of paper with this name on it, I would call them Clow-ee. So they, um, they tell Klowee with a K, a W and two E’s that they should probably reconsider a life of crime.

And Klowee’s like, “Why? Because it’s wrong?” And Hen’s like, “No, ’cause you suck at it.” Um, and in like perfect television timing, three, count ’em, three LAPD officers have shown up at this bar. It must be a very slow night in LA to, uh,

Alice: apparently

Bex: to deal [01:24:00] with the, I don’t know what they got called, like fraud? Um, theft? Possibly trying to like steal drinks from the bar. I don’t know. But they’re there. And um, Karen very proudly tells them that they have apprehended the suspect and that she made a full confession.

Alice: Athena would be so proud.

Ellen: She so pleased with herself.

Bex: She’s having a great time.

Ellen: Yep. Yeah, so apparently a bit later after they’ve gone, um, probably only like a few minutes later Hen says, that tells Karen that she’s gotta go down to the station to talk to some, to the detective in the morning.

Um, and Karen’s like, “oh, that’s the boring part, the takedowns where it’s at.” And I’m like, oh no. She’s taken to the, the vigilante life.

Bex: Next, uh, spinoff suggestion for [01:25:00] 9-1-1. Bobby and Karen and Michael open

Alice: oh my God, yes.

Bex: a detective agency.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: Michael and Bobby do surveillance. They send Karen out to do the actual like legwork.

Ellen: Yeah. To take down the perp.

Bex: Yep. Uh, but Hen notes that, um, Karen sounds pretty amped for a woman who was about to pass out an hour ago, and Karen’s like, yeah, it’s the thrill of the chase. It’s probably gonna wear off soon. We should probably cut her home before, you know, she turns into Cinderella unless the Cinderella turns into the pumpkin and all that sort of thing.

Um, and Hen’s like, or we never actually closed out the tab that Klowee started in my name.

Ellen: I thought you kind of did by asking for your card back.

Bex: Yeah, yeah. But didn’t pay for it,

Ellen: I guess.

Bex: Because I’m guessing like, I don’t know, I’ve never [01:26:00] opened a tab, but I’m assuming that you then have to like look at the receipt of all the drinks that you’ve gone and gone yes, I will pay for it.

Ellen: Yeah. I think, I think you do have to agree on it, on the amount at the end. Yes. Um, and anyway,

Alice: I’m pretty sure you usually like give your credit card and then they charge it all at the end.

Ellen: They charge it. Yeah. But

Alice: yeah,

Ellen: but in, but in America they have to like scan it and then you have to sign like non nowadays, now you can do, you can do eftpos.

Bex: Anybody who is listening who has gone clubbing and set up or could just gone to a bar and opened a tab, please tell us how you close out a tab. ’cause clearly we’re not exciting enough, enough to have ever done that.

Ellen: No, we have, but here in Australia, you just tap your card and it’s done. Whereas I, I don’t think in 2022 they had that.

Bex: I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere that let me open up a tab. It was always you pay [01:27:00] for your drinks as you buy them.

Alice: Yeah.

Bex: Are they gonna therefore pay for all of the drinks that Klowee put on? I know, that’s

Ellen: what I don’t understand. That’s what it sounds like.

Yeah.

Bex: Like how,

Ellen: well, maybe they’ll try and claim it all on back on like from the bank because it’s a fraud, fraudulent thing.

Alice: But then they’ll be like, oh, well these ones were put on there after she was arrested. So they’ll

Ellen: just commit their own fraud.

Bex: Like, we’re gonna do a chargeback for $200, but the other 300 is ours, I don’t know.

Alice: Yeah,

Bex: It’s very strange. Anyway, so they decide that they’re going

Alice: whatever they,

Bex: they’re already out, they’re already at a bar. They’ve got a tab. They might as well like live it up for the night.

Ellen: So off they go to the dance floor, they’re gonna work hard and play hard.

Bex: And they’re gonna pay for it tomorrow, but that’s tomorrow’s problem.

Ellen: Mm-hmm.

Bex: I wonder if this is like the sugar rush of like the, from the cupcakes that Karen ate.

Alice: Could be maybe,

Bex: and then [01:28:00] even though this is obviously nighttime and we do cut back to them at the end of the episode where they’re still like partying hard, we’re gonna cut to the Han apartment where Chim is coming home after shift because Maddie talks about breakfast. So it’s morning?

Ellen: Yeah. This is, this is a strange timeline. Like this maybe this is the previous day, like maybe we’ve jumped back in time. ’cause why hasn’t Hen at work?

Bex: It’s all timey wimey. I don’t know. Maybe she had the day off for studying

Alice: maybe

Bex: anyway.

Ellen: Except she wasn’t studying. She was gonna go out to the art thing.

Bex: She was partying. Yes. This is why she’s not ever, ever going to graduate medical school ’cause she’s not studying. Um,

Ellen: yeah.

Bex: So anyway, Chim comes home to find Maddie [01:29:00] fighting with Jee to feed her. Like she’s trying to feed Jee, Jee is refusing to eat. Um, and so Maddie goes, you know what, I’m just gonna cut my losses.

Like, “have you noticed that your daughter is refusing to eat?” And Chim’s like, “yeah, I just throw dry cereal at her and let her, you know, fend for herself.” Um, so Maddie decides that they will have fish sticks for breakfast, which is, you know, fed is best.

Alice: Yeah. Look, it’s protein. It’s,

Bex: yep.

Alice: Better. Yep, it’s fine.

Bex: So she turns to head for the kitchen to cook up, um, said fish sticks and the sound effects goes from like grumbling 1-year-old to like three month old baby cooing. Like baby COO 32. Um, and Jee apparently it’s not that, um, Jee doesn’t wanna eat, Jee does not want to be fed, Jee wants to feed herself [01:30:00] because whatever Maddie was trying to feed her, um, Jee has just picked up the spoon and gone to town.

Alice: Yep. Jee is a strong independent woman now. She does not need no mother or father.

Bex: She can see she wants herself as long as she has servants to deliver her food to her highchair, she’s good with that.

Alice: Exactly. Yeah.

Ellen: Mm-hmm.

Bex: Um, but the, the real sort of important importance of this moment is this is the first time that she has done that, or it’s the first time that they’ve noticed that she can feed herself and Maddie was there for it. She didn’t miss this milestone.

Alice: Yeah.

Bex: And I, I think it’s so sweet. Like Chim immediately goes for his phone. He’s like, shit, Jee’s doing something new. I’ve gotta document this. And then he realizes he doesn’t have to document it because he was documenting it from Maddie, but Maddie is there and she got,

Alice: yeah. Maddie’s like, no, no, let’s just enjoy the moment together.

Bex: It’s like, because I’m actually in [01:31:00] this moment, I’m experiencing this moment with you.

Ellen: Oh, it’s so cute. And they cheer because Jee’s doing it again.

Bex: Cute. She’s like, do it again. Such a good girl. Such a clever girl. Do it again. And she’s like, wow, you guys are being crazy. But, okay,

so then from there we cut to the hospital where our groom is being discharged, um, and the production assistant is being the one to come pick him up, which is kind of sad. Like I understand why they did it for storyline purposes, but it’s kind of sad.

Alice: Oh, throughout this whole thing, by the way, throughout that whole scene and since the end of the club scene, um, “What About Us” by Pink?

Ellen: Yeah.

Alice: Has been playing. Um, so I’m just a sobbing mess ’cause that song always makes me cry.

Ellen: Oh, okay.

Bex: So, yeah, so I’m, I’m actually [01:32:00] fine. I think I was a little bit teary watching the edit, but I, I have no emotional connection to this song, so I was fine. Um, either that or I was all cried out from earlier in the episode.

Alice: Probably all cried out from earlier in the episode

Bex: probably. Um, so the, the groom kind of assumes that the pa picking him up means that he’s going back to set and the PA is like, “Hmm, no, you didn’t disclose a pretty major medical condition. Um, so we’re booting you off the show.” Um, he actually says, “look, I know your heart’s in the right place. Well, actually yours isn’t. “

Alice: Yours isn’t.

Bex: And the groom says, “But like, what about the bride? I know that she really wanted to get married.” And the p the production assistant’s like, “Yeah, she does.” And we cut to the bride back in the same wedding dress, back in the same veil, back on set, walking down the aisle to another groom.

Like she really didn’t care who she was getting married to as long as she was getting [01:33:00] married. This one doesn’t faint.

Ellen: So weird,

Bex: which is

Ellen: no, he looks very happy.

Bex: Yes.

Ellen: To see her. Uh, so onto the next bit of like tying up the loose threads at the end of the episode, um, we have Bobby getting home and Athena is going through some old photos. Uh, she’s going, taking a little walk down memory lane as Bobby says.

Bex: Yeah, it’s all this stuff from college. ’cause like Bobby pulls, she’s pulled out and Bobby picks up, um, her old sorority jumper with the, the Greek letters across the front.

Ellen: Yeah. They were gonna, they were my best friends and we were gonna change the world together. And Bobby says, “but aren’t you still doing that? Not in the way you thought you would then, but” I’m like, oh, that’s a nice sentiment, Bobby.

Bex: Yeah. Athena has no reg regrets. She’s cool with her life. She’s where [01:34:00] she’s meant to be.

Ellen: That’s cute.

Bex: And then, uh, we finish off back at Fort MacArthur where, um, I don’t know how long, like, how much of a time jump this is, but the dad has decided to bring his daughters back to the place where their mother died.

Alice: This seems like an awful Yeah. Literally. Like I would never wanna go back there again, but sure. Let’s all just go back and look like,

Bex: I mean, I feel like

Alice: maybe we’ll lose dad this time. Like what? What? No,

Bex: I feel like they, that would be something to do, like on the anniversary, like go back to the place and, but

Alice: like pay your respects. Yeah, but it’s weird.

Bex: Like a day after, a couple of days after. I don’t understand. Um, but yes, dad has brought the kids to the park, um, and which they then immediately turn their back to the battery and start looking out over the ocean.

So like they’ve turned their back on their dead mother. Um, and one of [01:35:00] the, one of the younger sisters says, “I miss Mom,” and Elena because. They need the storyline and they also didn’t wanna pay the actor playing the dad’s sag rates. Says like, it’s okay, look. And she grabs her sister’s hand and like holds up their clasped hands and says “She’s right here.”

Which I think is a callback to the, “if you ever miss me, just reach for each other and I’ll be there” moment from like the, the death message. Um, and I hope that it’s that and not the intense para parent parentification that Elena has gone through since the death of her mother.

Alice: Yeah.

Ellen: Probably, probably a bit of both? But no, I think it’s supposed to be a reference for reaching for each other.

Bex: I know. It just, it came, it could come off either way.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: Um, and then like we don’t end on that moment. We end on Karen and Hen back at the club.

Alice: [01:36:00] Yeah, which is,

Ellen: and they’re having a great time. They’re dancing away, but

Bex: interesting. So like

Ellen: a bit of a tone shift there.

Bex: How long has it, like if we work out how many days that the, it’s been since dad, like the mom died to the dad brings the kids, have they been at the club the entire time?

Ellen: You know, I, like you said, timey wimey, I think we’re jumping around quite a lot here.

Bex: It’s just, it’s so strange because

Ellen: Yeah, you’re right, Hen’s never gonna graduate. She’s

Bex: like, everything in this episode flowed so smoothly. Like one scene lent into the next, so you had one conversation flowed into the next conversation. So you know that timeline wise, we were sort of heading in a reasonable direction.

And then we get to the end of the episode and they’ve just gone, yeah, okay, cool. We’ve dealt with chronology. Fuck it. Let’s just throw shit wherever we want it now.

Ellen: We just have to wrap up all of these threads, but we’ll do it in a random order.

Bex: Editor’s [01:37:00] choice. Put anything where you wanna put it.

Alice: Yeah, just chuck ’em wherever. Doesn’t matter. Just blast the Pink.

Bex: Yes. As long as Pink is playing.

Ellen: Yeah. Well, apart from that, that last bit, which is a bit of a extra whiplash, um, this was a great episode.

Bex: It was a really good episode. It was really well written. Um, it was thematically like on point, even though it took me how many of the times I’ve watched this episode, plus doing the notes until now to connect all of the dots. Uh, but that’s a me problem, not a them problem.

Ellen: They only said FOMO like one time.

Bex: Once.

Alice: Yeah. I think it was only once. Yeah.

Bex: So shout out to May for dropping the episode title.

Ellen: Was who wrote this one? We didn’t mention it at the start.

Bex: Uh, this was written by, I did make note of this. Um, this was written by, I’m going [01:38:00] to butcher her name. Nicole Barraza Keim. And this is her first episode credit.

Alice: There you go. She did great. She made us cry, but good job.

Bex: Like she could have been in the writer’s room, like participating in the general writer’s room shenanigans, but this is the first time she’s ever been credited as a writer, like as a whole. So, yeah, I think she did an excellent job. Yeah.

Alice: Yeah. The, um, oh my God, the, the mother with the kids, like it was very David Wallace, but they did it so well.

Ellen: Yeah, sometimes the David Wallacing is a bit cringey, but that’s, this wasn’t,

Alice: yeah. They’re like, you will care about these people. They didn’t even try and force it down the throat. They were literally just like, oh yeah, this is just a mom and no kids. Ha psych.

Bex: Which is like,

Alice: oh fuck.

Bex: That’s why it got to me because we were trying to explain to, um, a friend. Um, so we were on a, a chat ’cause we were gonna, um, be gaming together and I said, no, I’ve gotta do these [01:39:00] notes before we can game. Um, and I’m just spamming the chat with crying emojis ’cause I’m watching the scene and our, the, the poor, poor friend,

Alice: we just wanted to farm Bex. We just wanted to farm.

Bex: It was the poor like friend who’s not like into the 9-1-1 fandom, or watching like Alice and I are at this point, it’s like, are you okay? And I’m like, no, I just got David Wallaced and then had to explain what it meant to be David Wallaced and she’s, and once I explain sort of the origin of why we call it that, she’s like, yeah, that show David Wallaces a lot.

And I’m like, yeah, but normally it’s so fucking obvious. And so in your face that I almost get, like you desperately want me to be sad, so I’m almost not going to be sad just because you told me that I had to be sad.

Alice: Um, there was an episode in season nine, I’m pretty sure it was actually last week’s, um, where they very much.

Bex: Oh my God.

Alice: Like, tried to, they didn’t even kill anyone, but they [01:40:00] very much tried to de and I was like, I just don’t care. Like,

Bex: oh my god, I sorry to derail, but yes, I watched that scene. Did not care one iota about what was happening.

Alice: Yeah. Like get back to the real story please. Um, whereas this one, I, I was like, what real story? These like 9-1-1, may as well be about this family now I will die for them. Like, yeah.

Bex: I think because they,

Alice: it was just, it was so well done because they didn’t try and shove it down your throat.

Bex: Yeah. We got a little bit of establishment that like the, the mother, we got a little bit to establish the mother and daughter’s relationship and then boom, she’s dead.

Alice: Like, and it was like, you know, and we all have a mother, so it’s very relatable to be like, oh yeah, I do just wanna spend time with my mom sometimes. Oh, now she’s dead. Okay, nevermind.

Bex: And it was like, honestly, I don’t, I don’t think it was so much the mother dying. It was the way the 118 treated her that like absolutely sent me over the edge.

Alice: Oh they did, it’s so well done, yeah

Ellen: yeah, that was beautiful. Yeah.

Bex: Yeah. The, the way that they treated her with such respect, with such [01:41:00] consideration for the kids that’s just like, oh yeah. ’cause we don’t like see that part of it often. Like we see them helping the living patients. We see them dealing with the emergencies, but we don’t often see what are they gonna do with the person once they’ve died.

Alice: Yeah. And the fact that like, they, they wrapped her in a blanket. They put the O2 mask on her. Um,

Bex: they were very cognizant of,

Alice: and they’re like, yeah, we’re not, we’re not gonna tell these three young girls out in the field. Oh, your mom’s not. Like that’s a, that’s a later discussion while, while they’re dad’s with them.

Bex: Yeah. That, that’s what absolutely killed me. Yeah.

Alice: Oh, and then the needle, like the song choice is just like, I, oh my God. Like I love Hen and Karen, love them, love HenRen, love them so much. Did not give a, give a shit about their story after that. Like, I, I was like, no, let, let’s get back to the kids and the mom.

Bex: I think it helped that when I was watching the episode for this notes, I [01:42:00] stopped after the kids scene and then I came back the next day to watch the rest of the episode. So I had like a little bit of emotional distance and I’m like, okay, I’ve calmed down. Now I can,

Alice: yeah. I calm down. I’m ready for HenRen, yes. Yeah.

Bex: But yeah, watching all of it in one hit, woof. The, the whiplash.

Alice: The whiplash is real. Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah. There was some weird tone shifts going on, but apart from that, it was well paced and kind of the storyline threaded through quite well. I know sometimes the, sometimes the dialogue can be really stilted and weird, but I thought this dialogue was all great. It just felt very natural. It was good.

Bex: And everybody got a scene, like everybody got a part of the storyline. Eddie was included, May was included. Everyone in the 118 was included. Yes. Two thumbs up, well written, made me cry.

Alice: Made us sob. Ruined our [01:43:00] lives. 10 outta 10.

Ellen: Yeah, right. Well, uh, what have we got to look forward to next week then?

Bex: Oh boy. Next week, um, dispatch goes up in flames.

Ellen: Oh gosh.

Bex: Like literally,

Alice: I was gonna say less tears, but no wait. Yeah, no. Keep the tissues handy.

Bex: The one a team races to the rescue. When the 9-1-1 call center goes up in flames, Bobby risks his life to save a trapped May and Claudette, Buck and Eddie worked together to help an injured electrician, and Chimney and his brother team up as firefighters for the first time.

Ellen: Ah, Albert wasn’t in this one.

Bex: So, yeah, those, those tissues that you had for this episode, please keep them nearby.

Alice: Re restock them after. Yeah.

Ellen: Oh my God.

Bex: Okay. Grab some water ’cause you might get a little bit dehydrated. Um, the tri triggers for this episode [01:44:00] include bullying. It says slash hazing. I’ve already said that I don’t think what Claudette is doing is hazing. It’s just outright bullying.

Alice: No, she’s, she’s just a cunt.

Bex: Yeah, so it’s a Claudette episode, so you, it’s not a Claudette episode unless there’s some form of bullying, so that’s going to be your trigger. Um, we have claustrophobia from being buried under rubble. Uh, frank discussion of burning in a fire. So not just normal discussion, but a frank discussion.

Alice: Frank discussion.

Ellen: Okay. They discuss it with Frank? I, not Frank, it’s just him. Okay. Sorry. Terrible pun, okay.

Bex: I forgot the therapist was Frank.

Alice: Yeah, it’s specifically with Frank.

Ellen: Discuss it with Frank.

Bex: No, a very, a very plain, very plain discussion of burning in a fire. Um, a high, high speed pursuit. Um, office building [01:45:00] fire, patient death, PTSD and threat of suffocation from a room being vacuum sealed, having all the air sucked out.

Ellen: Geez. Okay.

Bex: Yeah.

Ellen: You know, I was just, I was thinking earlier when we were talking about May and, and Eddie at dispatch, that we hadn’t heard from Claudette for a while. I was wondering. I, I’d forgotten that she was there. Um,

Bex: You jinxed us!

Ellen: you just reminded me,

Alice: have we seen her,

Ellen: I must have summoned her again

Alice: since Eddie joined dispatch?

Ellen: No, we haven’t seen her for, for weeks.

Alice: Yeah. I didn’t think so.

Ellen: Yeah, so I don’t know if May’s still like managing her shifts so she’s not on at the same time as Claudette

Alice: Maybe.

Bex: Probably.

Ellen: Uh,

Alice: just, I wanna be rostered only when Eddie’s in, so he’ll protect me from the big mean, um, dispatch lady.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: Maybe Claudette’s moved to night shift or something like, Eddie only does a nine to five, maybe Mae’s only doing nine to five and Claudette is [01:46:00] strictly night shift.

Ellen: Yeah.

Bex: I guess we’ll find out next week. Yay.

Ellen: Yay. Because Claudette is gonna be there at the same time as May,

Alice: and the episode’s called “May Day”. There you go.

Ellen: Ah,

Bex: nice little pun there.

Ellen: It doesn’t sound like May’s day. She’s getting stuck in

Alice: No,

Ellen: in a fire. Anyway, uh, uh, we would love to hear what you thought of this episode. Um, this was a, like, did, like we, we said that we’d spent a lot of the time in tears, but like, please let us know how you reacted to this episode too. I’m sorry if you were crying as well. You know, you can send us a comment via this episode’s post on thatweewooshow.com or, um, directly in Spotify or YouTube.

Uh, or you can send us a message on social media. And thank you for everyone who has been doing that. We’d love to hear your messages. Um. Thank you so much for listening this week, and we will talk to you next [01:47:00] time for episode 16, which is called “May Day”. See you then.

Bex: Bye.

Alice: Bye.

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

If you enjoy our podcast, you can help us out by leaving us a review on Spotify or your preferred listening app, and by sharing our social media posts, find out more at thatweewooshow.com.

[outtake]

Alice: Okay. Hang on, I need to, I need to pee and deal with the dogs again.

Ellen: Okay.

Bex: Don’t pee on the dogs.

Alice: I’m wasn’t planning on it.