Always An Angel, Never a God (3x08: Malfunction)
Hen and Eddie in this episode: I don’t know why I am the way I am.
This week Han, Cil, and Rachel try to compute Season 3 Episode 8 of 9-1-1, “Malfunction,” where Hen's life is in full-on meltdown mode and Eddie is busy trying to gaslight himself around his grief. We dive into Hen and Eddie’s psyches and how grief can manifest in very different ways.
Hen’s family is normally the rock upon which she stands, but the fallout of the IVF failure has destabilized her home life, and her attempts to maintain her usual composure at work are visibly unsteady. Hen and Karen’s relationship is strained with the heavy weight of grief, making them both feel alone even when they’re together. We reflect on Hen’s struggle with compartmentalizing, a skill she usually excels at, as it’s thoroughly tested, leading to an emotional crescendo with the ambulance crash that leaves us questioning how far one can go before breaking down completely.
Meanwhile, we explore Eddie’s no good, very bad choices, particularly the reckless behavior as he grapples with the aftermath of Shannon's death, the tsunami, and not being able to talk to Buck. His misguided attempts to beat his thoughts and feelings into submission via illegal fights reveals a pattern of self harm, destruction, and punishment. What he really needs and longs for is a deeper connection and to be understood, but he isolates himself in his own pain instead.
We applaud the intricate use of sound design and cinematography in the episode, particularly the fights and ambulance crash, where it helps create a visceral experience that brings the audience right into the characters’ inner worlds.
This episode has us discussing how unexpected tragedies can alter characters' trajectories, with Hen's emotional breakdown paralleling Eddie's impulsive decisions and the consequences that follow. They both try to scrape themselves off the pavement, but they’re not quite strong enough yet.
📔 Articles Mentioned
📰 Ryan Guzman: Eddie Diaz of ‘9-1-1’, Faith, Loss, & Filing Forward (Full Episode), Zach Sang Show on YouTube
📰 Yo-Yo Ma on how Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 gives us all the code to rebuild after disruption and tragedy, Classic fm
📰 What’s that tear-jerking string music in The Last of Us?, Classic fm
Episode Title inspired by “Not Strong Enough” by boygenius
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Music by DIV!NITY
Chapters
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:00:55) Welcome to Dispatch
(00:03:41) General Thoughts
(00:08:13) Jaws of Life - Deep Dive
(00:18:11) Needle Drop - Music Analysis
(00:27:42) Red String Corner - Parallels & Foreshadowing
(00:33:27) Flashover - Episode Themes
(00:39:16) Who’s Cookin’? - Hen
(00:51:00) Where’s the Fire - Scene Dissection: Ambulance Crash
(01:13:09) Eddie
(01:26:00) Eddie & Bobby’s Heart to Heart
(01:43:19) Slow Burn - Bi Buck & Buddie Watch
(01:54:13) Buddie & HenRen 8x17 Parallels
(02:01:42) Take a Buddie With You & Outro
Transcript
This episode we talk about Hen's home and work life crashing and burning.
Speaker B:How Eddie is trying to gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss his way through his grief and.
Speaker C:Anger and the 118's reaction to hen and Eddie's crash outs.
Speaker B:Have you ever watched something that completely rewired your brain chemistry?
Speaker C:A procedural network drama might not be your usual pick, but it's ours.
Speaker A:This is the Buddy System, a 911 deep dive podcast hosted by three friends who have DMed each other enough character dissertations to earn a PhD in media literacy.
Speaker B:I'm Han, coming to you straight from the characters heads.
Speaker C:I'm Syl, bringing you to the observation deck.
Speaker A:And I'm Rachel, connecting the dots with my red string.
Speaker B:With our powers combined, no stone is.
Speaker A:Left unturned and no buddy is left behind.
Speaker C:This episode brought to you by Disney on Ice.
Speaker C:Welcome to Dispatch.
Speaker C:What's on call this week?
Speaker B:This week we are discussing Season 3 Episode 8, Malfunction.
Speaker B:Written by Tanya Kong, directed by Joaquin Cedille, and the director of photography is Dwayne Milwaukee.
Speaker B:We're going to start saying who the director of photography is now because I didn't realize that Andrew Mitchell wasn't the director of photography for all of eight also upon request.
Speaker B: ,: Speaker A:All right, so we have four calls of the week.
Speaker A:The first one is a very grim brothers fairy tale on ice.
Speaker A:And that is when I don't.
Speaker A:I don't have this written out, so apologies in advance.
Speaker A:But an ice show trips up, one might say, when a sequin falls and creates mass chaos and resulting in some severed fingers and a skate to the chest.
Speaker A:Then we have future.
Speaker A:Think of Squidward from spongebob.
Speaker B:I never understand a single spongebob reference you make.
Speaker A:I know, but this is for the people, okay?
Speaker C:I feel like I don't even remember this.
Speaker A:It's the one where they like are in the time machine and they go to the future and everything's chrome.
Speaker A:So then square.
Speaker A:Squidward at some point just like has a mental break and is like future.
Speaker A:Oh, one of my favorite episodes.
Speaker C:I distinctly remember hearing it.
Speaker C:Wait, he goes to space, right?
Speaker C:And he's on the moon?
Speaker A:Maybe.
Speaker B:Why the fuck is he in space?
Speaker A:Sandy the Squirrel is an.
Speaker C:An astronaut.
Speaker A:An astronaut.
Speaker A:So don't ask questions you don't want the answers to.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Nothing makes sense.
Speaker C:Moving on.
Speaker A:Anyways, future a la Squidward, where a man in a self driving car experiences a heart attack and safely reroutes to the hospital.
Speaker A:However, the Car being on autopilot, drives directly into the hospital.
Speaker A:Then we have IP Robot, where workers in a warehouse are threatened by the robot presence, about to take over their jobs and.
Speaker A:And one man relieves himself because they're not allowed to go to the bathroom.
Speaker A:And then the robots malfunction.
Speaker A:And the last one is Swan Song, where a young up and coming cellist whose first night performing in the Philharmonic gets derailed when she gets into a car crash with an ambulance driven none other by our very own hence.
Speaker B:All right, so uplifting stuff.
Speaker A:I know, Very uplifting.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker C:Love it here.
Speaker A:Most of these are funny or like half of them are funny, but they're still like a very dark undertone.
Speaker A:So what did you guys think of this episode?
Speaker C:The one and only Aisha Hines.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker C:No, honestly, like I.
Speaker C:I love, like, these are very deep, impactful stories, especially for Hen and, and Eddie.
Speaker C:They're both going through so much and their individual scene, well, their individual emotional scenes, like, you know, Eddie with Bobby and then Hen and Karen and Hen with what happens at the end, like, and with Athena.
Speaker C:Like, those scenes really, like, are so impactful and so memorable.
Speaker C:Yeah, so the episode's very memorable.
Speaker C:Never fail.
Speaker C:And it never fails to make me cry at the end.
Speaker C:That's it.
Speaker C:That's a tweet.
Speaker B:Every time.
Speaker C:Every time.
Speaker C:Like, lately, like, I always cry at the end because I watched it.
Speaker C:Like, this is the third time I watched it and I still cry.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's impactful for sure.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:This is an incredible episode.
Speaker A:There's like so much going on and I know it's like mostly Hen and Eddie's like, storyline.
Speaker A:Like, it's pretty much an AB storyline, but there's just, there's little moments for everybody in it.
Speaker A:It's done so well.
Speaker A:Like, everyone's acting because it carries a lot of like, emotional weight as well.
Speaker A:Like, like the funnies are so funny and the lows are so low.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:It's also kind of interesting to watch this episode kind of after everything with eight in like the second half of eight, to see how deeply unexpected tragedies affect our characters in this way as well.
Speaker A:So just to kind of use like 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and compare it with.
Speaker A:With something like this where it's, you know, very much like out of people's control.
Speaker A:I think that's a similar thing.
Speaker A:I'll talk about that more in themes, but like, it's interesting to look at both of those in that context.
Speaker B:Excellent episode.
Speaker B:Pretty Funny until it's depressing as fuck.
Speaker B:Like, it's just the way it ends.
Speaker B:And I'm like, oh, my God.
Speaker B:And, like, the way that we're watching it right now, like, when I originally watched it, I binged it.
Speaker B:So I was like, okay, let's see what happens next immediately.
Speaker B:And, like, not be sitting in that moment.
Speaker B:But because, like, I don't normally watch ahead in the rewatch for the podcast, I'm just, like, living in that moment at the end of the episode.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because it just ends for a week.
Speaker B:It just ends.
Speaker A:It really just leaves you.
Speaker B:Incredible fucking work by Aisha Hines, of course.
Speaker B:Just astonishing, the amount of, like, emotion that she can push through a TV screen and make you feel.
Speaker B:And Ryan knocked this episode out of the park too.
Speaker B:Like that scene with Bobby.
Speaker A:Did he knock it out?
Speaker B:Ah, ha ha.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:It's just.
Speaker B:I think it's such a great ensemble episode, and I.
Speaker B:I miss this kind of vibe so much where, like, even though we really only had an A and B plot, it was such a huge focus on Hen and Eddie, we still touched base with everyone a little bit.
Speaker A:Everyone was so involved.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:And we had.
Speaker B:We had the little moment in the kitchen with Athena and Bobby, and then we have the moment in Buck's kitchen with Buck and Maddie and Chimney.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker B:It's just a great episode.
Speaker A:The ending is a lot great, but emotionally taxing.
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker B:It's a little, like.
Speaker B:Like, soul crushing.
Speaker B:I'm like, one minute.
Speaker B:I'm gonna time myself for one minute to complain about this.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Why did the show make me more sad about this girl I knew for two minutes dying?
Speaker B:Why did they make me more sad than that?
Speaker B:And show me everyone reacting?
Speaker B:And I don't know.
Speaker B:I just feel like, why was that done so well?
Speaker B:But Bobby dying?
Speaker B:The emotional impact was just like, why is it happening this way?
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:There.
Speaker B:I only needed 30 seconds.
Speaker B:Incredible.
Speaker A:I wish I had answers.
Speaker C:Maybe we'll talk about it.
Speaker C:Maybe we'll.
Speaker C:We'll find those answers when we get to our scene dissection.
Speaker A:Maybe.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:True, true, true.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay, let's go for that.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:Put me out of my misery.
Speaker B:I will willingly just put myself into the open.
Speaker B:Jaws of life.
Speaker B:We're gonna need the jaws of life over here.
Speaker B:Take me out.
Speaker B:I'm so tired, you guys.
Speaker C:That's how I felt so tired this morning.
Speaker A:I was like, I'm sorry.
Speaker A:I can do the Jaws of Life by myself later.
Speaker B:No, I'M just so tired.
Speaker B:I'm so tired.
Speaker B:It's just like, really harsh in my.
Speaker A:Vibe, you know, mellow.
Speaker B:There was no mellow to be found.
Speaker B:I don't think mellow's a word people have ever used to describe me.
Speaker A:Fair.
Speaker A:My bad, My bad.
Speaker A:That was a transition.
Speaker A:It made me concerned for context.
Speaker B:Podcast listeners.
Speaker B:I haven't slept that much in the past week.
Speaker B:I'm hungover and still is hungover, even though it's like 5pm I'm here anyways.
Speaker C:Oh, and Rachel is also here.
Speaker B:Rachel is also here, feeling fine, having slept.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:I didn't find any press articles.
Speaker A:There were a couple interviews with Aisha, but those are actually for next week, next episode.
Speaker B:Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker A:So I will talk about that then.
Speaker A:I don't think we really have any for now.
Speaker A:Again, if I miss anything and you know of a press article for specific episodes, send it to me.
Speaker A:Link them to us.
Speaker A:So instead, we're gonna talk a little bit about production stuff.
Speaker A:So this is the second episode for 911, directed by Joaquin Sidio.
Speaker A:The first one that he did was 304, which was triggers.
Speaker A:That's when Buck was being Fire Marshal Buck and everything.
Speaker A:And Joaquin Cedillo is also the director of photography, so I thought it was interesting too.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:And I'm glad we started including the director of photography for this episode because I was like, well, wait, because Joaquin Sidio is usually the director of photography.
Speaker A:So, like, I was wondering that earlier.
Speaker B:I was like, is he pulling Double Duty?
Speaker B:Can you even physically do that?
Speaker A:I don't think you can.
Speaker A:So I was like, okay, wait, so who actually is the director of photography?
Speaker A:Because they have to shuffle that.
Speaker A:So I realized it was Dwayne Milwaukee, and he's usually the camera operator, and he has some additional cinematographer credits.
Speaker A:So he's been around for about, like, seasons two through seven.
Speaker A:I'm not sure there was season four in there.
Speaker B:Was he.
Speaker B:Was he the director of photography for four as well?
Speaker A:304.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Okay, cool.
Speaker A:So they had to shuffle that around a little bit, which I think is interesting.
Speaker A:So it's like you're just moving some people around.
Speaker A:But as a camera operator and additional cinematographer, that seems like a pretty easy role to fill.
Speaker A:And kind of, like I mentioned earlier, I think Theo really handles the tone shifts in this episode very well.
Speaker A:And it's also written very well by Tanya Kong.
Speaker A:So, like, the.
Speaker A:The both of those handle it very well.
Speaker A:So they're able to switch between, like, the humor of Bobby's figure Skating stuff and the silliness of the warehouse robots and how, like, bizarre and kind of stupid slapstick that is.
Speaker A:And then like, pivot to the.
Speaker A:The action of Eddie's fight club stuff.
Speaker A:But then you have all of that emotional devastation with Eddie and hen and the ambulance crash.
Speaker A:So it's like.
Speaker A:It's so many different tonal genres and it all comes together, like, very well.
Speaker B:So it's the same writer, director, and DP for both this and Trigger.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:I was just about to.
Speaker A:I was just about to say Tanya Kong also wrote 304.
Speaker A:So it's the same team, like, leading for.
Speaker A:For both episodes.
Speaker B:Only two episodes of OG she wrote.
Speaker B:She wrote.
Speaker B:Yeah, these two for OG but.
Speaker B:And she wrote three for Lone Star.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:I really like these two episodes.
Speaker B:I really do too.
Speaker A:I also saw in.
Speaker A:In her IMDb that it makes sense that we like her stuff because she's credited as a story editor for season three of Daredevil, the Netflix version.
Speaker A:And she wrote My Heart six of Daredevil, which was the perfect game for anyone who doesn't know, which I don't know why you wouldn't yet.
Speaker A:We all love Marvel very much and we are big fans of Daredevil, none more so than Hannah.
Speaker A:But the episode that she wrote was when in season three, Fisk was getting ready to pin all of that stuff on.
Speaker A:On Point Dexter.
Speaker A:So you get like that black and white.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Flashback sort of stuff.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And I was like, wait, we love that episode.
Speaker B:It's a really good.
Speaker A:It's a fantastic episode.
Speaker A:So I thought that was really interesting that, you know, all of those genres really meld into each other.
Speaker A:And it's kind of similarly with that episode of Daredevil.
Speaker A:So fabulous work by Tanya Kong.
Speaker A:And just like, the way everything came together was pretty fantastic.
Speaker A:And I like.
Speaker A:I like seeing the same kind of the same teams, like the same writers, directors get paired up because I think then you get like, such a great working relationship and probably a shorthand as well that ends up being, like, really interesting.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker B:And you can really cohesive, like visual.
Speaker A:Story and then you can play around with stuff.
Speaker A:And then we also have some sound design stuff, which I thought was kind of interesting.
Speaker A:I was picking up on a little bit.
Speaker A:I was like.
Speaker A:I put my hand ears on.
Speaker A:So being our audience, where those went.
Speaker A:Our audio guru.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So at.
Speaker A:At the ice skating call, when the.
Speaker A:The person in, like, the.
Speaker A:The witch costume, I assume that's the, like the green.
Speaker A:And I'm assuming that's the one with the witch in like the gingerbread house.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because it's handsome.
Speaker A:I think his name is Randy.
Speaker A:When Randy was explaining how the skaters went full toe pick to Bobby, it actually like repeated the same little like bell sound that they used when the sequin fell off and like landed on the ice that they had just a couple minutes previous prior.
Speaker A:Previous.
Speaker B:Previous.
Speaker A:Previous prior.
Speaker A:Prior.
Speaker A:And I thought that was kind of interesting, like an interesting, like, wow, I'm just going to continue.
Speaker A:I thought that was an interesting like audio callback there.
Speaker A:But it also kind of like the way that the camera was on Bobby at that moment, it kind of sounded, it kind of made it sound like a little light bulb going off in his head.
Speaker A:And I think that's kind of what it was.
Speaker A:He's like, ah, I know, I know exactly what that means.
Speaker A:So I thought that was, that was like a really cute little sound design addition.
Speaker A:And then there was another point.
Speaker A:It's during the first ambulance ride when and Chimney are going to the warehouse and you know, Hen is really distracted and Chimney's trying to get her, you know, head back in the game and everything like that.
Speaker A:You hear like the siren and, and there's a lot of sound going on.
Speaker A:So you hear like the siren and like the, there's like the little beeps of I think the medical equipment going on, but there's also a little bit underneath that.
Speaker A:Like it's almost like a little that, that continues to happen and it's on the same beat as the, like the medical equipment supply beeps.
Speaker A:And it's kind of, to me, it kind of felt like building tension because, you know, Ken is distracted, she's driving like, oh no.
Speaker A:What's gonna happen?
Speaker A:Like just kind of like on, on a regular interval and it's kind of unsettling, but nothing bad happens.
Speaker A:But they don't do that.
Speaker A:But they.
Speaker A:So it kind of like sets up this expectation or this, this anticipation of something bad will happen which gets fulfilled on the second ambulance drive where that sound is not present because Hen is like she's back and she's at it and her head's in the game.
Speaker A:And then it's like, nevermind.
Speaker A:So I thought that was kind of interesting.
Speaker A:And then the last thing I think I have for that is just, just another Tim My Near Classic of pulling.
Speaker B:From real life to my near special.
Speaker A:The Tim My Near Special, which is Ryan Guzman's real life history as an MMA fighter.
Speaker B:Like what she absolutely had in mind when he was like writing this storyline.
Speaker B:This storyline?
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:There's no way yeah, so apparently he was.
Speaker A:Ryan Guzman had been an MMA fighter for quite a while.
Speaker A:I think he.
Speaker A:He talks about it fairly frequently, but there's this one interview.
Speaker A:It's with the Zach Sang show.
Speaker A:It was on YouTube.
Speaker A:And it's a fantastic interview.
Speaker A:It's like an hour long, so, like, go watch that anyways.
Speaker A:But in it, there's a segment where.
Speaker A:Where they are talking about his history as an MMA fighter, and he kind of talks about his, like, mindset going into fights, which I think all of us found really, really interesting.
Speaker A:So that's more like.
Speaker A:I thought it was more interesting than just, like.
Speaker A:And he was an MMA fighter and he fought for, like, however many years.
Speaker A:No, it got.
Speaker A:He, like, talks about his mindset and everything, so that's kind of cool.
Speaker A:Go check that out.
Speaker B:A couple songs for Needle Drop today.
Speaker B:We got some.
Speaker B:I don't know what category of rock to put this in.
Speaker A:Category of rock.
Speaker B:Millennial Underdog, bro music.
Speaker B:Yeah, something like that.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:Yeah, like, early arts, like, the world's.
Speaker B:Keeping me down kind of.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker B:It's I down in Papa Roach, like, anyway, they fit right in the scenes.
Speaker A:They're.
Speaker B:They're for both of Eddie's fights.
Speaker B:So the first one for the first fight is Sound of Madness by Shinedown.
Speaker B:Just a couple lyrics to talk about.
Speaker B:Says, I created the Sound of Madness, wrote the book on pain.
Speaker B:Somehow I'm still here to explain that the darkest hour never comes in the night.
Speaker B:You can sleep with a gun, but when you gonna wake up and fight for yourself?
Speaker B:So.
Speaker C:Ooh.
Speaker B:This is all just very much about, like, him trying to not think about everything that happened with Shannon.
Speaker B:Like, that's what all of the fighting is about, because it's driving him, like, literally driving him insane.
Speaker B:He needs, like, a physical outlet for it because he doesn't need therapy.
Speaker A:No, why would he.
Speaker A:Why would he need that?
Speaker B:So, yeah, I created this.
Speaker B:The Sound of Madness, wrote the book on pain.
Speaker B:Like, yes, he is creating the sound of madness in his head by letting all of that just bounce around and up there and not talk to literally anyone about it.
Speaker B:And he's writing his own, like, sentence, basically, of, like, what happens at the, like, the end of the episode.
Speaker B:Like, isn't he suspended?
Speaker B:Is he suspended?
Speaker B:Or does he just have to get therapy?
Speaker A:Who, Eddie?
Speaker A:Yeah, Nothing happens yet.
Speaker B:Nothing happens.
Speaker A:No consequences yet.
Speaker B:So unrealistic.
Speaker B:Anyway, but he is.
Speaker B:He is writing.
Speaker B:He's writing his own kind of, like, downfall with this because, like, it is a.
Speaker B:It is a problem.
Speaker B:It should have been, like, realistically a bigger problem.
Speaker B:And then that you can sleep with a gun, but when you're gonna wake up and fight for yourself, it's very much like thinking about sleeping with a gun is like.
Speaker B:It gives you a false sense of security.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:A false sense of, like, I'm okay because I have this thing that'll protect me, when really the thing that you're using to protect yourself can be your own demise.
Speaker B:So I just thought that was very appropriate.
Speaker B:And especially the Just like, when are you gonna wake up and fight for yourself instead of, like, fighting yourself, Fight for yourself.
Speaker B:Then we have Born for Greatness by Papa Roach.
Speaker B:Sorry, are you gonna take Papa Roach seriously?
Speaker A:Wait, when was this one playing?
Speaker B:Was it during the second fight?
Speaker B:Okay, this is the one where he kills a guy.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Got it.
Speaker B:I'm a man at war and I am fighting for all of the broken people all the people thrown overboard they always tried to shame us but they don't speak our language no, we're not nameless we're not faceless we were born for greatness okay.
Speaker B:This song, actually, I looked up the meaning of what they meant.
Speaker B:Like, Papa Rich.
Speaker B:When they, like, wrote it, they were like, this is about people with disabilities and how, like, they are also, like, born for greatness.
Speaker B:And I was like.
Speaker B:I didn't know Papa Roach actually, like, had deep thoughts while they were writing lyrics, I think.
Speaker B:I think it's not familiar with your game.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Which is also interesting, too, with.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like, relating it to Eddie with Christopher and everything like that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But then the chorus is like, oh, somebody sound the alarm.
Speaker B:Oh, a fire was set in the dark.
Speaker B:And I know that's very, like, how he is a firefighter, but.
Speaker B:No, it's like, literally, alarm bells are going off in his head.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And a fire was set in the dark.
Speaker B:Like, the fire is simultaneously, like, the trauma from Shannon and, like, what he is doing to himself with Fight Club and not dealing or processing any of those emotions.
Speaker A:No, that's so true.
Speaker A:It's like.
Speaker A:It's like double trauma.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's punishing himself.
Speaker B:Oh, for sure.
Speaker B:For sure.
Speaker B:It's time you.
Speaker B:It's time.
Speaker B:You know, we're not nameless we're not faceless we were born for greatness.
Speaker B:I don't know really what to take away from that.
Speaker A:I think, like, expectation.
Speaker B:I think it's maybe expectation and kind of, like, trying to, like, find yourself in your place.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I couldn't really come up with a clear yeah.
Speaker B:Through line for that, but there were Definitely a few lines in there.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker A:I think it's expectation because I'm Something in themes that I picked up on.
Speaker A:So that would be.
Speaker A:That would be an interesting connection there.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So I think the next two that we have are just the instrumental pieces that we get with Evelyn, the.
Speaker A:The Young cellists story.
Speaker A:So the piece that she plays for her gran, that I.
Speaker A:I think is the one that she would have been playing at the Philharmonic.
Speaker A:So that is box Cello Suite Number one.
Speaker A:I think there are six.
Speaker A:I'm not a music.
Speaker B:There's six.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And it's a really beautiful piece.
Speaker B:Obviously, it's.
Speaker A:It's incredibly famous, but I saw some.
Speaker A:Something that Yo Yo Ma, who is also an incredibly talented and famous cellist, one of the ways that he interprets this piece, this interpretation that he has, as he was introducing it before he played it.
Speaker A:So he says that the Cello Suite number one kind of represents in many ways the water that is flowing right in front of us.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It also represents when something very violent and tragic interrupted the flow.
Speaker A:Then this piece also includes the rebuilding and the reimagining of the better version of the very first.
Speaker A:So I thought that was so interesting because of him saying, like, it represents something very violent and tragic interrupted the flow, which is quite literally what we see happen with the ambulance crash, just, like, totally interrupting Evelyn's life, Hen's life.
Speaker A:Like, all of these different paths coming to converge, and it's just like totally swerved in ways that they couldn't expect.
Speaker A:But then, you know, we know Hen will be able to, like, rebuild later on.
Speaker A:It'll just be like a tough.
Speaker A:A tough moment to get through.
Speaker A:So I thought that was really poignant, like a weird connection.
Speaker B:I'm glad you found that quote because, like, I looked up this song and like, the Google AI told me basically, like, it's about, like, rebuilding.
Speaker B:And I was like, that sounds great.
Speaker B:And then I couldn't find the source of what it was talking about.
Speaker B:Like, I literally read like three articles.
Speaker B:It was like, I don't have time for this.
Speaker A:I hate Google.
Speaker B:Glad you found it.
Speaker B:Me too.
Speaker B:But it was like, I was like, where's your source?
Speaker B:And I looked at all the.
Speaker A:Usually it has little links, but.
Speaker B:Yeah, I know.
Speaker B:I looked at him.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then our last song is what's playing, like, at the very end, like, as Athena is, like, comforting or trying to comfort Hen, and she's watching them try and save Evelyn.
Speaker B:And it's on the Nature of Daylight by Max Richter.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:Oh, My God, it's a heart wrenching song.
Speaker B:But I was like, where the fuck is this from?
Speaker B:Because I've heard it before.
Speaker B:It's been, it's been played in a lot of movies and TV shows.
Speaker B:But I was like, specifically what trauma is this niggling in my brain?
Speaker B:And it's Bill and Frank from the Last of us on their last day.
Speaker B:This is the song that's playing.
Speaker C:Oh, no.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Anyway, excellent choice and song.
Speaker B:But yeah.
Speaker A:God, yeah, it's.
Speaker A:It's interesting because this song is so often used in movies and TV for moments of like, grief or, or deep contemplation.
Speaker A:And I think it's.
Speaker A:I read somewhere that it's probably because of like the, the strings and like the waning strings and, and everything that it's like uneasy but also just like it hits you so deeply.
Speaker A:And I also saw that Max Richter said once that.
Speaker A:That this song was an attempt to create luminous music out of the darkest materials.
Speaker A:And I, I mean, I think he.
Speaker B:Created this whole album like, as like in protest of the Iraq war.
Speaker A: It was like: Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So there's.
Speaker A:There's a definite like dark undercurrent that is.
Speaker A:That is.
Speaker A:So I think like, like it just reaches into the, into the depths of the listener.
Speaker B:It's one of those pieces of music where like, sound design and like soundtracking is so.
Speaker B:Can be used so well to kind of like, not only enhance the scene, but to kind of indicate where a scene is going to like, kind of prepare the audience member.
Speaker B:There's no way that you're watching that scene thinking that girl's gonna live with that music playing.
Speaker B:Like, you just know something bad, something horrible.
Speaker B:Yes, exactly.
Speaker B:It is hopeless.
Speaker B:It is like.
Speaker B:It's heart wrenching.
Speaker B:So, yeah, you know, you know bad things are gonna happen when you hear that song.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's really indicating something that like, you already know.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But it's like, oh, now I know for sure.
Speaker A:All right, so I think we'll just move into our little redstream corner for today.
Speaker A:I've connected the dots.
Speaker A:You didn't connect, so it's not really a parallel.
Speaker A:But we, we do see Ronnie Cooper back as captain of the.
Speaker A:I think it's the 136.
Speaker A:Well, because we see Lena and it's her, her station that comes to the fight club call and we see Ronnie Cooper back.
Speaker A:And the last time we saw him, he got his arm amputated in 303.
Speaker A:Yes, 303.
Speaker A:And I was like, wait, what?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Doesn't that mean.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Like, he wouldn't.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:I don't know what the deal is with, like, if you just got your arm amputated, doesn't that mean you probably shouldn't be still working?
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker B:As the captain, as a fire station.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker B:Physically demanding job.
Speaker B:Like, I don't even know that enough time has passed for him to, like, have been in rehab and, like, have a very working, functional prosthetic arm.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker A:So I just thought.
Speaker A:I just thought that was interesting because I was like, wait, Ronnie Cooper?
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And I was so confused.
Speaker A:And I watched it again, and I was like.
Speaker A:I was like, does he have an arm?
Speaker A:And you can see his prosthetic, I think, at the point where they're about to leave the scene, and he says.
Speaker A:He calls Lena, says that they're, like, on their way out, and you can see he does have a prosthetic.
Speaker A:Prosthetic.
Speaker A:So I thought that was really interesting.
Speaker A:Then in the context of everything that maybe Buck went through with his injuries, first the crush injury for the leg, and then all the.
Speaker A:Everything else that has happened, and it's like, oh, maybe it really.
Speaker A:It really was.
Speaker A:Bobby was preventing him from coming back because.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Lost a whole ass arm.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I thought that was interesting at first.
Speaker B:I thought.
Speaker A:I thought we were gonna catch them out for, like, inconsistency, but then I saw the prosthetic, and I was like, oh, good.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker B:Well, that's good, because that.
Speaker B:You pointed that out, and I was like, did they just forget?
Speaker B:Yeah, they just didn't want to come up with a new name, but.
Speaker A:Okay, that's what I.
Speaker A:That's what I said.
Speaker A:I was like, is it.
Speaker A:Is it the same actor who played Ronnie Cooper?
Speaker A:And it is.
Speaker A:And I was like, what?
Speaker A:So then I had to check again, and I saw.
Speaker A:So he's still.
Speaker A:He's still captaining, which good for him.
Speaker A:And I guess that kind of goes back to the Papa Roach song about, you know, disabilities and stuff.
Speaker B:Yeah, I was just thinking about.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:There's a fic where Buck actually has to get, like, from the knee down, amputated after the fire truck.
Speaker B:But he does go back to work, but it's like, a very long road.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And then just for a bit of foreshadowing, it was mostly, like, within the episode, but, you know, in that first ambulance ride to the warehouse, we get the Chekhov green light on route to the warehouse call, where it shows hen pushing the button, and it cuts to the light turning green.
Speaker A:And that's very important for establishing what happens later on.
Speaker A:So you always have to have.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And like Chekhov's gun is something in visual media where you show something earlier on in a story and then it becomes more important later.
Speaker A:But you have to have some.
Speaker A:You have to establish it earlier in order for it to come back and hold that importance later on.
Speaker A:So it was the.
Speaker A:The Chekhov screen light.
Speaker A:I have.
Speaker A:I have more that I want to talk about that with the way they, like, film that stuff later.
Speaker B:I will just say that there's a couple parallels in between characters.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:In this episode.
Speaker B:So, like, we have.
Speaker B:We have a lot of paralleling with not just Eddie and Maddie, but Eddie and Hen.
Speaker B:And I just think that's so interesting.
Speaker B:So, like, Eddie.
Speaker B:Eddie and Hen are both angry about situations that, like, they feel like they shouldn't be angry at.
Speaker B:Like, he's like, I'm angry at a dead person.
Speaker B:And she's like, I feel so bad about being angry at her, but I am.
Speaker B:And then with Maddie, it's.
Speaker B:It's the whole, like, yeah, no, I went crazy and did something and wanted to lie about it, but you're making me come out and talk to my brother about it, and Eddie's in the middle of his doing something crazy that he didn't talk to anybody about.
Speaker B:Yeah, I just thought that was interesting.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:I like that they, like, kind of pair up all of those together, and then you have in.
Speaker A:In that instance, like, Chimney and.
Speaker A:And like, Bobby and Athena, who are all just, like, very concerned.
Speaker A:It's less like paralleling.
Speaker A:I think it would be more like Buck and Chimney parallel in that instance.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because they're both going, what's going on with my partner at work?
Speaker C:When I was watching the episode, I was just thinking about, like, how.
Speaker C:How everyone is, like, someone is worried and, like, re trying to reach out to their partner.
Speaker C:Like, hen is trying to reach out towards.
Speaker C:Hen is trying to reach for Karen.
Speaker C:Jimmy's, you know, reaching out to Hen or trying to be there for Hen.
Speaker C:Buck is worried about Eddie.
Speaker C:Bobby's worried of.
Speaker C:Well, we don't get to see that because, like, obviously that, like, that episode's past Athena begins and all that.
Speaker C:But I know, like, Bobby at some point was worried about Athena.
Speaker C:Like, everyone's kind of, like, definitely paired off.
Speaker A:Everyone's paired off.
Speaker A:It makes sense.
Speaker A:They're concerned for their partner because why they want to have their partners back.
Speaker A:Anyways, okay, themes.
Speaker B:Let's go.
Speaker B:Flash over.
Speaker A:All right, so I think the, like, the overarching theme of this episode is so much about control and kind of like the tenuous grip one may have on control, like having it and losing it.
Speaker A:And I think that kind of comes up in a couple different ways.
Speaker A:So very obviously we get malfunctioning, which is Malfunction, the name of the episode, you know, classic 911 style where we have it in a couple different ways also.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So we have malfunctioning in the way that the trust that we have in technology.
Speaker A:So like the benefits of technology but also when things go wrong and the pros and cons there.
Speaker A:So you have like the self driving car, the robot employees, pen pressing the button and all of those things, like what happens when those that are meant to be helpful and productive malfunction and not just technology, but what happens when we as humans malfunction.
Speaker A:Like it's tending to operate in a way that's not typical to the character.
Speaker A:So Maddie stalking Tara, Eddie doing fight club and his impulse truck buy, you know, Hen distracted on the job and not compartmentalizing like she normally does.
Speaker A:All of these are ways in which like the characters are malfunctioning kind of from the way that, that they typically act.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because something is wrong.
Speaker A:So it's, it's a, it's a cause and effect sort of thing.
Speaker A:And then in like still under the umbrella of control is anger which is something that we've seen a lot of in the, this first half of season three.
Speaker A:So we see it in this episode specifically as part of grief for Hen and Karen for Eddie.
Speaker A:And then we have, which was started a little I think with either rage or triggers with the interpersonal conflict.
Speaker A:So like fighting anger and fighting each other or amongst each other or arguing.
Speaker A:So you have like Ken and Karen there.
Speaker A:Eddie is physically fighting all of these things and also hating yourself for being angry.
Speaker A:Like you don't want to be angry however you are and you don't want to be because like you said, both Hen and Eddie are angry at themselves.
Speaker B:For being angry and, and it sounds really productive guys.
Speaker A:And then, and then we have subverting expectations.
Speaker A:So I think this is kind of a more subtle theme, but it's, it's a little connected to that, that malfunction, right.
Speaker A:Of, of people.
Speaker A:Because you know, Hen, who is usually so good at compartmentalizing, putting it away, right.
Speaker A:Or letting go.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:And, and she's so distracted like at work and Eddie being impulsive and.
Speaker A:But then you also have like Bobby being a figure skater, so he's subverting those expectations.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because they thought he was a hockey player.
Speaker A:You can be both.
Speaker A:And I think they do a lot of subverting expectations visually as well.
Speaker A:And then communication, again, big theme for this episode.
Speaker A:So there's a lot of focus on imploring people to confide in or talk to someone specifically.
Speaker A:Like when Lena tells Eddie and.
Speaker A:Or hen is confiding in Athena, Eddie finally confides in Bobby.
Speaker A:But then there's also with communication, this like playing a game of telephone.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Which is kind of like the rumor mill of the 118.
Speaker B:Because.
Speaker A:Because you tell one person and that one person tells somebody.
Speaker B:Somebody.
Speaker A:Somebody else, and that person tells somebody else.
Speaker A:We also saw this just like not that long ago in 8:17.
Speaker A:This is a.
Speaker A:A really like a fixture of the 118 and how they operate as.
Speaker A:As a group like that.
Speaker A:That communication style where it kind of like goes through the grapevine where everybody knows everybody's business.
Speaker A:So kind of on that.
Speaker A:On that aspect, like, privacy and like, who has the right to know certain things.
Speaker A:And then there's stuff about SIM similar to technology.
Speaker A:Stuff like the future is here.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I thought of that more in terms of, like, personal dreams or goals, which may pertain to, like, career and purpose stuff.
Speaker A:So you have like the ice skaters, the cellist, Athena being suspended, Buck trying to stay on Bobby's good side.
Speaker A:Specifically, like, I like both of your.
Speaker A:Both of your cooking, Eddie's illegal extracurriculars, like, all of those things.
Speaker A:And like, what sacrifices one makes to either get there or the consequences that you could face for doing something that.
Speaker A:That like, contradicts it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And consequences is.
Speaker A:Is another.
Speaker A:Another theme because we see.
Speaker A:We see again, Athena being suspended and Eddie's illegal stuff.
Speaker A:The consequences of, you know, trusting technology with Hen or.
Speaker A:Or that investigation that.
Speaker A:That will be impending.
Speaker A:So there's a lot here, but I think that's mostly it.
Speaker B:Who's cooking?
Speaker B:All right, so hen Henrietta, she is showing up for work, acting like I do, which is out of it.
Speaker B:So not.
Speaker B:Not super normal for her when she hands chimney, like the completely wrong thing.
Speaker B:And he's just like, like, looking at.
Speaker A:Her like she has three heads, like, who are you?
Speaker A:Who body snatched my best friend.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that's how, you know, like, right off the bat that something, something is a myth.
Speaker A:A myth, something.
Speaker A:What is it?
Speaker A:Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Speaker A:I'm on a Shakespeare kick right now.
Speaker B:Like, clearly no reason.
Speaker A:No, I mean, also like what we were just talking about with our 817Kitchens kitchen scene with, like, the.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:We were like, oh, Yorick.
Speaker A:And, you know, so there it's been on my mind because of that.
Speaker C:I don't know for sure.
Speaker A:By the time this comes out, they'll forget.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Anyway, so Pen is.
Speaker B:Is not doing well because her foundations at home are all out of sorts.
Speaker B:And I think that's.
Speaker B:We're seeing that.
Speaker B:That is really where she gets her kind of strength dead fast.
Speaker B:Just totally focused energy from.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's like when.
Speaker A:When her home life is in order and everything has its place, it is so much easier for her to compartmentalize because that is so.
Speaker A:Because that is so neat and organized at home.
Speaker A:Like, they may have some issues here and there, but then she's still able to put that aside because that is home life.
Speaker A:But she can't do that this time because she has to.
Speaker A:She has to kind of, like, pick up some of.
Speaker A:I don't want to say the slack because that's not super complimentary, but she.
Speaker A:She has to kind of pick up the slack a little bit.
Speaker A:She's getting these concerning calls, and I think Denny calls her at some point.
Speaker A:So, you know, it's like, ooh, not great.
Speaker B:She can't lean on.
Speaker B:On Karen right now to, like, emotionally or, like, even completely as a partner.
Speaker B:Like.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, she.
Speaker B:It's kind of implied that she had to do something that normally wouldn't be done by her, which is take Denny to school.
Speaker B:And that's why she was late for work.
Speaker B:So it's, like, talked about how, like.
Speaker B:Like he's kind of just being fed, like, processed stuff and everything's a mess.
Speaker B:So it's like she.
Speaker B:She's having to do extra work, but it's.
Speaker B:I think it's less that and more so that, like, she just doesn't have the emotional support of.
Speaker B:Of her.
Speaker B:And it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:There's just, like, such a distance.
Speaker B:And I think that's really what is creating the problems for her.
Speaker A:But it's exacerbated because everything is, like, the other stuff out of routine.
Speaker A:So, like, when.
Speaker A:So she compartmentalizes well because she has a routine at home that is very.
Speaker A:That is very adhered to.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Because that is off its foundations because of what's going on with Karen.
Speaker A:That just, you know, really.
Speaker A:I'm trying to think of, like, not an earthquake metaphor, but, like, it displaces everything else, I guess.
Speaker C:I think the conversation in the.
Speaker C:In their bedroom is so interesting because of how we know that that hen is really good at compartmentalizing and that's what Karen sees, actually, because she makes a comment about, like, oh, I don't know how to do what you do.
Speaker B:Hen.
Speaker C:Meanwhile, Hen is so worried.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And so, I mean, and the anger just develops throughout the episode.
Speaker C:But, like, it's.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:Karen is so out of reach for her.
Speaker B:That.
Speaker C:And in both ways, like, Karen.
Speaker C:Karen can't see how it's affecting her because she thinks that it was like, losing, like, having a family was just an idea to her.
Speaker C:Meanwhile, like, the embryos were a part of her.
Speaker C:Like, she.
Speaker C:It, like, definitely, like, a major disconnect between the two.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I thought that whole scene was so interesting because it's so telling of Hen and Karen because they're so not where they usually are.
Speaker A:But also.
Speaker A:Sorry, I'm.
Speaker A:I'm.
Speaker A:I'm going to parallel it to 8:17 with buck and Eddie.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because still, like you just said, Karen is so unreachable.
Speaker A:And here Karen is, like, grieving and thinking that Hen is fine.
Speaker A:And that is very similar to kind of what we see in that kitchen where Buck is, you know, I'm sorry that Bobby's like, sorry that I'm sad that Bobby's dead.
Speaker A:And, like, he's.
Speaker A:He's going through this grief and it doesn't really feel or seem to him that anybody else is feeling it as deeply as he is.
Speaker A:And meanwhile, Eddie is also grieving, but Buck is so unreachable for him.
Speaker A:So that's also another Eddie and Hen parallel, I think, too.
Speaker A:But just.
Speaker A:Just the way that, like, both of these scenes kind of set up this, like, this expectation of one of them who is grieving, doesn't think the other one is grieving as hard as they are, but are also, still, like, so unreachable for the other one who is grieving.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker A:And it's just like these.
Speaker A:These passing ships, like, they're just not on the same page.
Speaker A:So I think that's, like, really interesting to look at both of those together because Karen says, like, I'm sorry my grief is taking so long.
Speaker A:And she thinks Hen is doing fine.
Speaker A:Hen is not doing fine, but Hen is kind of a little more worried about the state of her family right now, as opposed to a prospective future family.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I think they're.
Speaker A:I think they're grieving in different ways a little bit.
Speaker A:Like.
Speaker A:Like, Karen is so in the what could be or what could have been.
Speaker A:And Hen is like, well, my.
Speaker C:We're also here.
Speaker C:We're here right now.
Speaker A:And she says that to Athena.
Speaker A:Yeah, she's she's kind of grieving the.
Speaker A:The right now because things are not how they're supposed to be.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Espe.
Speaker A:Especially for.
Speaker A:For Karen, because for her, she says it wasn't an idea, it was a part of her.
Speaker A:And even though hen is trying to reach out to her, it looks like it's working.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And it's not that hen says anything wrong either.
Speaker A:It's just the.
Speaker A:I think the way that they're communicating are just like a slight mess to each other.
Speaker A:Because Hen, you see.
Speaker A:You see Karen kind of like get a little bit of light back in.
Speaker A:Into her.
Speaker A:Her eyes when Denny comes in.
Speaker A:And then Karen realizes, like, has a.
Speaker A:Has a moment of clarity almost that, like, you know, she can't be mad at Denny because he's trying to do something so nice.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And hen gets Karen to agree to, you know, go have dinner all together a family.
Speaker A:The family that they have right now.
Speaker A:And Hen, like, they're almost there.
Speaker A:They're almost there.
Speaker A:And then hen said, like, I was attached to the idea.
Speaker A:And that's where Karen kind of, like, reverts back into herself and.
Speaker A:And isolates.
Speaker A:Because hen doesn't understand what it was like for her.
Speaker A:But, like, that's why they have to communicate about it.
Speaker A:But she.
Speaker A:She's communicating about it, but.
Speaker A:But they're not.
Speaker A:But not, like, enough, you know?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:So it's.
Speaker A:It's really difficult for hen because she doesn't feel like she has Karen to lean on right now because she's so worried about her.
Speaker A:So who does she lean on?
Speaker A:It's Athena.
Speaker C:Athena.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's interesting, too, again with all of this communicate, this topic of communication and leaning on somebody that Athena said when they go to sit down at.
Speaker A:In.
Speaker A:On the patio of Athena's house, that Athena heard what happened with the ivf.
Speaker A:So Athena didn't even tell, or hen didn't even tell Athena.
Speaker A:It was chimney told Bobby and Bobby told Athena.
Speaker A:So we have that, like, through the grapevine thing again, where everybody's privacy is.
Speaker C:Like, not like there's just no privacy.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Everybody knows everybody's business here.
Speaker A:But I think it.
Speaker A:It bothers hen a little less at that moment because she just needs to.
Speaker A:She needs to be able to talk to Athena about this.
Speaker A:And I think.
Speaker A:So you said.
Speaker A:You said what.
Speaker A:What Hen says with the.
Speaker A:We're still here and we need you.
Speaker A:And Athena recognizes that.
Speaker A:And she is there for her because she.
Speaker A:She understands that hen is, I think she said, worried and exhausted and.
Speaker A:And they're scared yeah.
Speaker C:She says, I want to scream at her that we're still here, your actual, living, breathing son and your wife.
Speaker C:We're here and we need you.
Speaker C:And she also says, like, oh, I feel so terrible for saying that out loud.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like, she's like.
Speaker A:She's really kind of kicking herself that she's so angry at herself for being angry with Karen.
Speaker A:Because there.
Speaker A:Here you have that war with Hen again between, like, the logic and.
Speaker A:And emotions where, like, she knows that Karen is going through something, that she.
Speaker A:Going through this grieving process differently than she is, and she respects it, but it's also.
Speaker A:She's.
Speaker A:She hates being angry at her because logically she shouldn't have to be.
Speaker A:But that's not.
Speaker A:Emotions aren't dictated by logic.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:So you have this, like, lack of compartmentalization between her emotions and logic here, which just make everything so much worse, too.
Speaker A:So it's like after.
Speaker A:After she talks to Athena, I think it really helps because then, you know, or it helps in part because she and Chimney are on their way to the warehouse call, and Chimney also kind of like, pleads with her, like, hey, I need.
Speaker A:I need you back.
Speaker A:I need you with me.
Speaker A:I need you to be my partner.
Speaker A:Like, get it together a little bit.
Speaker A:And Hannah's.
Speaker B:He's like, I can't do this without you.
Speaker B:And it's kind of like him saying to her how she feels about Karen.
Speaker B:Really, like, kind of hit her and made her wake up.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:On the job, at least.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So then it's like when they're at the warehouse, she's finally back to regular hen.
Speaker A:It's not that she's not grieving and still having all of these emotions.
Speaker A:She's just able to focus more.
Speaker A:And she anticipates Chimney's knees and.
Speaker A:And she hands him the.
Speaker A:The tool that he actually needs to use, as opposed to the ice skating one where.
Speaker A:Where he looked at her like she was crazy.
Speaker A:And then it's like she's back.
Speaker A:She's back, and then the worst thing that could have possibly happened happens.
Speaker A:So, like, you know, the one step forward, two steps back sort of thing.
Speaker A:So it's like she's finally getting back to usual hen.
Speaker A:She's kind.
Speaker A:It seems like she's kind of ready to tackle things in a new perspective and with maybe a little more grace.
Speaker A:And then the.
Speaker A:The ambulance crash.
Speaker A:Totally.
Speaker A:Well, flip that on his head.
Speaker C:Not what she needed.
Speaker A:Literally the last thing.
Speaker A:The last thing.
Speaker A:It's like Murphy's Law sort of situation.
Speaker A:It's bad.
Speaker A:It's just bad, bad for Hen.
Speaker A:She was on her way back and then just because of a malfunction.
Speaker A:Okay, okay, Are we ready for this downer of a scene dissection?
Speaker B:Oh my God.
Speaker B:Jesus.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Hey.
Speaker C:Where'S the fire?
Speaker A:So for the scene dissection, we are talking about the ambulance crash at the very end with the montage and, and all the, everything connected to that.
Speaker A:So I, I mentioned this a little earlier.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker A:About the Chekhov's green light on en route to the warehouse call, where I just, I really loved the way that this whole sequence was filmed or like both sequences in the ambulance from Hen's perspective.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So the first time when they're going to the warehouse and I mentioned there's like that kind of uneasy sound in there with all of the beeping and on, on the way to the warehouse, there is a close up on Hen pushing the traffic preempt button.
Speaker A:And the, the way that it's shot the first time is the aerial shot of the drone with the ambulance going from right to left on the screen.
Speaker A:Kind of like bird's eye view.
Speaker A:And then shows the red light Hen pressing the button and then it turns green.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So it's setting up an expectation for the second, for the, the second ambulance drive after the warehouse.
Speaker A:You know, like right before the crash, there is no cut to the traffic light, so it's just the collision.
Speaker A:So the, the shot sequence is red light, pen clicks.
Speaker A:The preempt button, which she does press, it is the correct button.
Speaker A:Red light preempt button, absolute crash.
Speaker A:So it's.
Speaker A:This is based on, on the established pattern from earlier where we're led to expect that pen pushes the button, it turns green.
Speaker A:Hooray.
Speaker A:But it subverts this expectation.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And then when we see from Evelyn's perspective, when we do that little snippet from of her getting ready for the philharmonic and she's driving.
Speaker A:We see this aerial drone shot again of her little blue car coming from left to right across the screen.
Speaker A:And we don't see the traffic light on her end until the collision has already happened.
Speaker A:And there's a shot of like the ambulance and her car already crashed.
Speaker A:And you see it kind of in the background, it's like on the right hand side and it is green and it's on the side of the road that Evelyn was driving.
Speaker A:So the use of the aerial shot for Evelyn having the green light, I think is an interesting parallel there from the ambulance earlier.
Speaker A:Because we like.
Speaker A:Does that make sense?
Speaker A:We see the aerial shot, we're expected to think that there's going to be a green light with hen.
Speaker A:So we see the aerial shot again, and there is the green light, even though there wasn't supposed to be this time.
Speaker A:So I just thought the way that.
Speaker A:I feel like I'm explaining it kind of poorly, but when you look at all three of those shot sequences is very interesting because there's a setup for an expectation, a subversion, and then a parallel to that first sequence.
Speaker A:So I thought that was very well done.
Speaker A:So, like, major props to Joaquin Sidio and Dwayne Milwaukee for director of photography.
Speaker A:I just.
Speaker A:I just really love that sequence.
Speaker A:And then, just very briefly, we do see with that cutting back to Evelyn and getting ready for her day, and.
Speaker A:And it's kind of like a weird tonal shift.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I'm assuming it would have been after a commercial break, so it would have started you off anew.
Speaker A:That's another use of the Rashomon effect, which we saw very early in season three with 302 and 303.
Speaker A:So just as a reminder, it's the phenomenon of the unreliability of eyewitnesses, which I think can definitely will play into.
Speaker A:The effect was named after a Japanese filmmaker.
Speaker A:It is a visual storytelling tool where an event is being shown by different perspectives of people involved of the same incident.
Speaker A:So we have, like, different POVs.
Speaker A:So I thought that was, like, a really great way to.
Speaker A:To utilize that Rashomon effect, too.
Speaker A:That's my.
Speaker A:That's my very, like, technical side of the scene dissection done.
Speaker A:Thank you for bearing with me.
Speaker A:I just thought it was so interesting, it made my brain go like.
Speaker B:No, it is interesting.
Speaker B:I just don't have anything to add.
Speaker A:No, that's fine.
Speaker A:Now we can actually talk about what it means for the characters.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:Sometimes I really hone in on, like, the technical aspects, but I don't always have, like, the.
Speaker A:The right language to.
Speaker A:To describe it.
Speaker B:You'd have to start learning some filmography.
Speaker A:Yeah, I would like to.
Speaker B:So Hen, I think, blacks out.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:From the impact.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then she's in shock.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Then she is in shock in more than one way.
Speaker B:Like, physically and mentally.
Speaker B:You know, she tries.
Speaker B:She tries her very best to save this woman, even though, like, she shouldn't be the person who's trying to save her because.
Speaker B:Well, first of all, she's the one who hit her.
Speaker B:She was part of the accident.
Speaker B:And second of all, she literally just blacked out.
Speaker A:Like, she probably has a concussion.
Speaker B:Medical care.
Speaker B:She needs medical care.
Speaker A:But I think.
Speaker A:I think that also just like, so kind of like what we saw with Eddie, where he rushed in to help the guy that he almost killed.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's autopilot.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's hen being autopilot that's so core to who she is.
Speaker A:Like, she wants to help, but then she gets pushed to the sideline.
Speaker A:Bobby is just like, literally, like, physically forcing her away because it's procedure, and he's protecting her because of that, even though she is absolutely distraught.
Speaker A:But even before they get there, Bobby's calling Athena so Athena can call her.
Speaker B:He called her on the way, for sure.
Speaker B:You know, and before we even see them leave the scene, Eddie, Buck and Bobby were still, like, back at the scene.
Speaker B:Packing up.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Finishing packing up the truck.
Speaker B:He gets.
Speaker B:They get the call from Chim for, like, they need the backup.
Speaker B:They need another medical transport.
Speaker B:Da, da, da, da.
Speaker B:And then Buck's like, who was driving?
Speaker B:Like, fearfully asking who is driving the ambulance?
Speaker B:Like, who was driving it?
Speaker B:And he's like, hen.
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker B:And it's double time.
Speaker B:They're moving.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because it's one of their own.
Speaker B:As fast as they possibly can.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But the way that Bobby knew to call, like, it was immediate.
Speaker A:He.
Speaker A:He had Athena on the phone within, like, milliseconds, like, knowing that hen has been going through a difficult time and.
Speaker A:And that she hasn't been like, her usual self, but knowing that this would be just.
Speaker B:This would destroy her even if she hadn't been having her.
Speaker A:Oh, exactly.
Speaker A:It's just.
Speaker A:Oh.
Speaker A:Literally the last thing she needs.
Speaker A:So he knows that.
Speaker A:That Athena is who hen can lean on.
Speaker A:And I think.
Speaker A:I think it's a really lovely thing that he does.
Speaker A:And just the way that he knows.
Speaker A:He knows Hen, and he knows that she needs someone to.
Speaker A:To lean on in this moment.
Speaker A:And also because he's kind of like, when.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's kind of like, in a way, a little.
Speaker B:It's just.
Speaker B:It's just these little things that happen behind the scenes because they don't show us that.
Speaker B:But, like, you know, Buck obviously called bobby for in 217 when Shannon died, because Bobby shows up at the hospital.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And he was also suspended.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:That's an interesting parallel.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But it.
Speaker A:It also kind of continues with that, like the 118 through the grapevine.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Telephone tree.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Everybody knows everybody's business.
Speaker A:But it's also like, for good reason because they're all leaning on each other.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So Athena.
Speaker B:Athena shows up and she is trying to hold Hen together.
Speaker B:She is Trying to support her friend while also professionally be like, you need.
Speaker B:You need to be silent.
Speaker B:Oh, my God.
Speaker A:Incriminate yourself.
Speaker B:You need to not say your feelings out loud because your feelings are not the truth.
Speaker B:Your feelings are not what happened.
Speaker A:I think that's so interesting, too, with an episode so focused on communication and talking to people that this is the moment where it's like, okay, you need to stop.
Speaker A:You need to stop talking because it's not actually going to do you any good in this instance.
Speaker A:Even though Hannah's like, I want to tell the truth.
Speaker A:And Athena's like, you can.
Speaker A:You can.
Speaker A:But all of the.
Speaker A:All of the feeling, all of the, you know, subjective stuff that this whole episode has been in, like, encouraging and employing, imploring.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:People to do.
Speaker A:It's like, no, cut that out.
Speaker B:You talk about their feelings.
Speaker B:It's like, no, once the police get involved, we don't talk about our feelings.
Speaker B:We talk about facts.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So while.
Speaker B:While Athena is.
Speaker B:Is trying to, like, physically and emotionally hold and together, you see the rest of the team trying to revive Evelyn.
Speaker A:Yeah, Evelyn.
Speaker B:Trying to revive Evelyn.
Speaker B:And it's like it's in slow motion.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:I think some of it is.
Speaker B:Some of it's in slow.
Speaker B:I think a lot of the time when it pans back over to.
Speaker B:To the team, it is slow motion.
Speaker A:Which is probably from hen's pov.
Speaker B:Hen's point of view.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Just like, you know, things moving so fast, but she.
Speaker A:She's like.
Speaker B:She's stuck in this moment.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, you said it, not me.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because I don't think about it before I say it.
Speaker B:Normal word to me.
Speaker A:I'm sorry.
Speaker B:But yeah.
Speaker B:So some of the team, I think, like, one by one, they keep, like, looking up at her at some point worriedly.
Speaker B:But at one point, Eddie kind of has his, you know, his hands on Evelyn's a Tigger pulse and like, shakes his head really minutely, like they're obviously.
Speaker A:Calling time of death.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then it's just like this really incredible.
Speaker B:But I'm trying to think of a word that isn't just depressing.
Speaker A:Devastating.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's an incredible.
Speaker B:But devastating, like, again, slow, slow mo of each.
Speaker B:Each member of the 118 kind of like standing up, looking over at Hen Chimney's walking towards her and they all, like, look heartbroken.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because it's hard to lose someone on the job anytime.
Speaker B:But when it was your fault.
Speaker B:When it was your fault.
Speaker A:Quoting Fingers.
Speaker B:Unimaginable.
Speaker B:Because that's just like the antithesis of like what, what your job is, what you want to do?
Speaker A:Yeah, like it's, it's this double whammy of losing.
Speaker A:Losing a patient or losing a victim because there wasn't anything they could have done to save her.
Speaker A:Even with all of their training and everything that they do.
Speaker A:Like, that is who they are as first responders.
Speaker A:They're.
Speaker A:They're trying to save people.
Speaker A:So it's, it's losing that, but also knowing how deeply it's going to affect Hen.
Speaker A:And like, Chimney looks.
Speaker A:Looks so concerned.
Speaker A:The way Buck is looking over at Hen breaks my heart every time.
Speaker A:Just like he, he looks like they all just look so despondent because they know how it's going to affect Hen and, but.
Speaker A:And they also don't know at that point that Hen is not at fault.
Speaker A:Like, actually technically, like, there was a malfunction there.
Speaker A:So, like, as far as they know, she killed a person and then has.
Speaker A:Will have to live with it.
Speaker A:So it's like they're also maybe seeing.
Speaker A:Seeing how that will affect her going forward with that knowledge of, like, someone who has dedicated their lives to saving people has now killed someone.
Speaker A:Which.
Speaker A:Which again is so interesting when you parallel Hen and Eddie in this episode where they're both these people who help and heal and have dedicated their lives to that, but end up causing hurt and physical damage to someone.
Speaker A:And how that, again, subverts that expectation that we have of them but that they have for themselves as well and is like just one of those.
Speaker A:For Hen, this was out of her control.
Speaker A:This was actually out of her control.
Speaker A:She doesn't know it yet, so she thinks she's just as at fault and she's putting that burden on her shoulders just like Eddie puts it on his shoulders.
Speaker A:So it's that assumption of responsibility as well.
Speaker A:And just like, gosh, there's like, literally they're just going through, like, the same thing so much in this episode.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's a lot.
Speaker B:Well, it's.
Speaker B:So it's.
Speaker B:When you work in the medical profession, like, everyone has to deal with not just losing patients because, like, you know, some patients just can't be saved.
Speaker B:Making a mistake that costs a patient their life, like, that's just.
Speaker B:It happens to everyone.
Speaker B:This is very different because this wasn't a patient, this was, you know, an innocent transport with a patient, just someone else on the road.
Speaker B:So it's very different.
Speaker B:Repercussions, I guess, like, emotionally.
Speaker A:It's repercussions emotionally, but also when Athena tries and Hen isn't hearing her But Athena tries to like, really instill in her this idea of like, you know, there's going to be an investigation, you need to stop doing what you're doing.
Speaker A:So there's also this impending consequences that are going to be hovering over Hen's head.
Speaker A:And I think that's interesting too because like you said, Athena is currently living through the consequences of her actions by being suspended after going after Dennis Jenkins from Athena Begins also similarly to like you said, with Bobby being suspended and.
Speaker B:When he was suspended because they found out that he lied.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So like consequences or repercussions emotionally and consequences professionally.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Even though she'll be absolved of them, will she absolve herself?
Speaker B:Herself?
Speaker B:I do want to talk a little bit about like some of the details and some of these shots that were just so like, I don't know, just add to the like surreal.
Speaker A:Mm.
Speaker B:Like kind of out of body ness, I guess that.
Speaker B:That Hen's probably experiencing.
Speaker B:It's particularly these two things.
Speaker B:The first is when they are pulling her out of finally pulling Evelyn out of the car and all of this bloody sheet music just spills out on her.
Speaker B:Spilling out like flying out of the car.
Speaker B:Just crazy work.
Speaker B:And then it also cuts to a shot of her cello case, like.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Demolished outside of the car.
Speaker B:So I think those two things just alone kind of really giving you an idea of how hard of a force this car was hit with.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And by car, I mean Evelyn.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:I think because she was in a.
Speaker B:Little tiny like fuel efficient sedan, so she had no chance against a tank of an ambulance.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Especially going.
Speaker A:I think they do a very impressive job of showing the catastrophic damage that that would be done here.
Speaker A:Because if you think about it, an ambulance is already going.
Speaker A:I don't know how fast they actually drive, but they're going fast.
Speaker B:I think it just depends, like, because especially when you're in a city.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's hard to go fast but.
Speaker A:But they go fast anyways and they usually get the green light.
Speaker A:So like why they wouldn't even have to stop in that.
Speaker A:In an instance like that.
Speaker A:So it is going full force.
Speaker A:And so was Evelyn at like probably the speed limit.
Speaker A:So it's just like, oof.
Speaker A:Big, big collision.
Speaker A:Like, like the physicality of it.
Speaker A:I think you're right.
Speaker A:Is.
Speaker A:Is really impressive.
Speaker A:Like that's.
Speaker A:That's just something that 911 does pretty well, I think.
Speaker A:Like, like with these emergencies they make.
Speaker A:That's where the.
Speaker A:That's where the realism is.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker B:Well, the realism is always in the emotion of the characters.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So again, I know I mentioned general thoughts.
Speaker B:I mentioned this earlier in general thoughts.
Speaker B:I'm gonna bring it up again.
Speaker B:I knew Evelyn for, like, two minutes.
Speaker A:And this was, like, so emotionally impactful.
Speaker B:So emotionally impactful.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like, it's so well done because they really put us in her POV with that Rashomon effect, showing her little slice of life.
Speaker A:It's the most exciting day for her professionally.
Speaker A:Like, she's.
Speaker B:Yeah, she doesn't even.
Speaker B:Just Like a normal day.
Speaker B:She's a normal person.
Speaker B:Like, no, she's a musical savant.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And the youngest person to ever be in the Philharmon.
Speaker A:Like.
Speaker A:Like, she.
Speaker A:She has so much to live for sort of thing.
Speaker A:She's reaching.
Speaker A:She's reaching her dreams again.
Speaker A:Like, her future is here.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And then for everything.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:It's the little stuff, too.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's her grandma who is so supportive of her.
Speaker A:It's her mom and her dad who are, like, so excited, but also, like, a little, like, helicoptery.
Speaker A:And her just being so proud of herself, like, seeing all these, like, comments on Instagram of everyone, like, so excited, and then just to have all of that, like, ripped away from her in a second because of a technical issue, a technical malfunction, and that is heartbreaking because all of the control is in no one's hands.
Speaker A:It's nobody's fault.
Speaker A:And that makes it all the more heartbreaking because, like, it's one of those things that, like, didn't have to happen, but did.
Speaker A:It does a really great job of introducing Evelyn as a character, giving us a very full picture in a very short amount of time.
Speaker A:So that way we emotionally connect with her, especially with the instrumental music, like that cello sweet number one.
Speaker A:And having Yo Yo Ma's interpretation of.
Speaker A:Of something violent coming in and interrupting the flow of everything like that, that makes it, like, even more poignant.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So it's emotional from that, but it's also emotional from the other side because from everything that.
Speaker A:That hen thinks she did at this point.
Speaker A:So she's just immediately carrying the burden, but is also in shock and every.
Speaker A:Oh, my God.
Speaker A:I just.
Speaker A:I think I wrote devastating, like, five times in my notes.
Speaker A:That's the only word I have.
Speaker B:They built up that story and made it have such an emotional impact and.
Speaker A:Like, five minutes less than.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Where was this energy at 8:15.
Speaker A:It was in 709.
Speaker B:Oh, it was in 709.
Speaker A:And that's when they did it.
Speaker A:So anyway, we know our Thoughts on that incredible scene.
Speaker B:Hate it.
Speaker A:Hate it so much because it makes us feel bad things.
Speaker C:I just cry.
Speaker A:Yeah, I was.
Speaker B:I cried the first time.
Speaker B:I don't think I've cried again.
Speaker A:I didn't cry watching it.
Speaker A:The two times that I watched it.
Speaker A:Yeah, I was.
Speaker A:I was a little wires crossed.
Speaker A:No, no, I think.
Speaker A:No, I think I was very focused on like the visual and the technical stuff.
Speaker A:So I was like, not as in it emotionally.
Speaker A:Well, I was, but like, you know what I mean?
Speaker A:I wasn't.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's like you're mentally taking notes.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Yeah, I get it.
Speaker A:I was physically taking notes.
Speaker C:But I think they do a good job of putting us in hen's headspace too.
Speaker B:They do.
Speaker C:Especially with some of the sound and the distortion.
Speaker C:You're hearing the people, the spectators in the background being like, oh, she's the one who.
Speaker C:I think she's the one who hit that car.
Speaker C:And meanwhile she's just having a breakdown.
Speaker C:Like she.
Speaker C:She's not hearing them properly.
Speaker C:Well, she really can't.
Speaker C:She shouldn't be.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And then I love how like as soon as Athena comes in, then it like clears up the.
Speaker C:Just the sound.
Speaker C:Like how they incorporated that.
Speaker A:Yeah, those effects in there.
Speaker A:That's so interesting.
Speaker A:It's kind of like 801.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:The sound design, everything about that scene is so well executed.
Speaker B:So much thought put into it to like have it make the most emotional impact possible.
Speaker C:Was this the mid season finale?
Speaker A:No, there were two more episodes.
Speaker A:Oh, the mid season finale was 310 season.
Speaker A:Bro.
Speaker B:I'd be so angry.
Speaker A:That would be awful.
Speaker A:Oh, my God.
Speaker A:That would be terrifying.
Speaker A:This aired, I think November 11th.
Speaker A:There was 309 fallout.
Speaker A:The next one was November 25th.
Speaker A:So that was like that.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:Around the week of Thanksgiving.
Speaker A:And then they had one more.
Speaker A:That was Seize the day.
Speaker A:That's one of the Christmas.
Speaker A:That's the Christmas episode.
Speaker A:That was December 3rd.
Speaker C:That was the diagnosis.
Speaker B:Yay.
Speaker C:Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker C:Never mind.
Speaker A:That is the mid season emotional cliffhanger.
Speaker A:All right, are we on to Eddie now?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker C:The one and only person that makes us malfunction.
Speaker B:Sorry.
Speaker C:That was really bad.
Speaker C:It's not my brand.
Speaker B:It's not even true.
Speaker A:Not the one and only.
Speaker C:I'm sorry.
Speaker C:He box.
Speaker C:He boxed too much.
Speaker C:He bought a truck.
Speaker C:Then he got in trouble.
Speaker B:How much was he making at these fights?
Speaker A:It looked like a lot.
Speaker A:Do we need to look up how much a Denali is like.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:What year was this?
Speaker B:2019.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A: So it was probably a: Speaker A:Don't say we're not thorough in our research.
Speaker C:This is for you, Tim.
Speaker C:This is for realism.
Speaker B: In: Speaker B: GMC Sierra: Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So he was making bank.
Speaker C:I was like, are you gonna Google how much can someone make at a fight club?
Speaker B:No, I don't need to be on lists.
Speaker A:Makes it so understandable now why Buck was like, don't come crawling to me when you're asking for.
Speaker A:For extra shifts to cover the car payments.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's the best.
Speaker B:That is expensive.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:This man, he's not acting like himself.
Speaker B:I, like, I can't really blame him because he was never taught or given the tools to, like, really talk about his feelings.
Speaker B:So I can't blame him to a certain extent.
Speaker B:But this is actually just crazy.
Speaker B:Like, he could have just joined a boxing gym or an MMA age.
Speaker B:Like, he could literally, he could have done this, like, legally.
Speaker B:But I feel like the part of it being legal was just some added layer of, like, punishment.
Speaker A:If he were to get caught and, like, get thrown in jail or something like that, that would be additional punishment for him too.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because he's not supposed to be doing well.
Speaker B:No, it's extra crazy because, like, he hasn't even put Buck in his will yet.
Speaker B:So, like, if he was gonna go to jail, his kid would go to his grandparents.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And this is really where we see, like, when Eddie does things for himself, which are usually actually out of, like.
Speaker B:He'S doing them to himself.
Speaker B:Punishment as, like, self flagellants.
Speaker A:When.
Speaker A:When he does that stuff, it's because he doesn't talk to anybody else about it.
Speaker A:Again with the communication stuff.
Speaker A:It's a form of self punishment because if he talks to someone about it, then they'll talk him out of it or they'll talk him, like, into seeing sense, and it's just like, no, that's just for me.
Speaker A:But all of those choices that he makes just for him.
Speaker A:It's not just for him, are so bad because they're born out of self punishment.
Speaker A:Self flagellation and a little bit of self hatred, self anger.
Speaker A:That's the root of all of that, really.
Speaker B:I mean, he's also angry with Shannon, and she's dead.
Speaker B:So I don't know.
Speaker A:Angry with, like, Shannon and maybe the universe.
Speaker A:I know he doesn't believe it, but, like, the universe, because so much of that was out of his control.
Speaker A:So for him, like, with that conversation that he has with Bobby, it really is about control so much, and.
Speaker A:And him, like, trying to have an iron grip on this control that when he.
Speaker A:He holds on too tightly, it ends up really bad.
Speaker B:Really, like, extremely bad.
Speaker B:So, like, the first fight scene we get, you're like, okay, you're still being crazy and you're making money.
Speaker B:All right?
Speaker B:Then you're like, you just.
Speaker B:Impulse, but a truck still being crazy.
Speaker B:Okay?
Speaker B:He's like, well, the AC was broken and there was a car dealership right there.
Speaker A:He's finding excuses left, right, and center.
Speaker A:And that's the thing, too.
Speaker A:He keeps excusing these behaviors that are so unlike him.
Speaker A:He says that with the truck to Buck.
Speaker A:He says that to Lena.
Speaker A:Like, I.
Speaker A:I was supposed to find an outlet.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And it's just like, these are so flimsy excuses.
Speaker A:Buck tells Eddie with the truck, like, that's not like you at all.
Speaker A:And Eddie's like, maybe it should be.
Speaker A:So he's.
Speaker A:It's this, like, weird.
Speaker A:Like, he's not exactly living up to expectations because he's being bet against in the fights where he's, like, more of an underdog in that way.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But the way he's acting is just, like, not him.
Speaker A:So I think with that, it's.
Speaker A:It's almost like the way he thinks he should be operating in the world.
Speaker A:Almost like he's trying to assert his own identity through.
Speaker A:Like I said, like, assert his own identity through socially expected means.
Speaker A:But that doesn't fit with who he is.
Speaker B:It's kind of like he's trying to cosplay as someone who doesn't give a shit because he would really like to not give a shit.
Speaker A:That's what I was trying to say in a much less pretentious manner.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker B:Yeah, you're welcome.
Speaker A:I'm just like, assert his own identity through socially expected means.
Speaker B:No, I mean, it makes sense, but I just, like, had that.
Speaker B:That moment where I was like, no, actually thinking of that line, because, I mean, I did.
Speaker B:I did go.
Speaker B:That's interesting for him to say.
Speaker B:Maybe it should be.
Speaker B:That's not like you at all.
Speaker B:Maybe it should be.
Speaker B:And, I mean, we've talked about it many times already.
Speaker B:How Eddie hates himself right now is the most he's ever hated himself.
Speaker B:So he's really going through it.
Speaker B:And, like, he does not.
Speaker B:He does not want to be the guy who, you know, got rejected and left again and lost, who was his best friend and dealt with everything else that happened and has, you know, trauma.
Speaker B:He's Like, I just need to be something different.
Speaker B:Because obviously, you know, if you think about the talk he had with Bobby where he's like, I forgave her for everything.
Speaker B:I wasn't enough.
Speaker B:He's like, I wasn't enough for her.
Speaker B:And, you know, he probably was still feeling that when the lawsuit was still going on.
Speaker A:Oh, definitely.
Speaker B:You know, with Buck, if he's still.
Speaker A:Feeling it now, like.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:In that way.
Speaker A:It's also when he makes these, like, big kind of crazy moves.
Speaker A:These, like, wild, like, left steps where he does things that are so unlike him.
Speaker A:I think that is also like, him trying to.
Speaker A:Trying on, like, different identities.
Speaker A:It's him trying to get himself out of his self and trying, like, cosplaying as someone that he wants to be.
Speaker A:And that's one of the reasons why it always backfires so hard for him, because that doesn't belong to him, but also because he's never really been able to explore who he is anyways.
Speaker A:I'm not even talking about, like, the gay stuff.
Speaker A:I'm talking about, like, who he is.
Speaker B:Who he is on a base level.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So the second fight, he's just like.
Speaker B:There's so many things about that second fight in the aftermath, the way it was shot, that are so interesting to me with, like, the lighting.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Like, especially when he's, like, up in the loft or whatever it is, he's.
Speaker A:All, like, shadowed and.
Speaker B:Well, it's shadow.
Speaker B:But there's also, like, this very warm.
Speaker A:Like, orange light, but not warm and, like, inviting.
Speaker A:It's very orange.
Speaker A:So it's, like, off putting.
Speaker A:It's like caution.
Speaker A:Caution signs everywhere.
Speaker A:That was.
Speaker A:It's great lighting in that warehouse.
Speaker A:It's so interesting.
Speaker B:It is really cool.
Speaker A:I think it's so interesting with this fight, too, that there's so much duality going on for Eddie.
Speaker A:And, like, this goes for Hen as well.
Speaker A:And I'll talk about that in scene dissection.
Speaker A:But for Eddie, you know, he's.
Speaker A:He's already doing these very, like, unedi things by joining this fight club and everything.
Speaker A:But, you know, the Eddie that we know is someone who helps and heals.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:It's interesting that the person that he's trying to be is the person who almost kills a man by kicking his nose into his brain and then he tries to, like, save him.
Speaker A:But so there's, like, this duality here that I find really interesting.
Speaker A:And it kind of made me think a little bit about, like, kind of this throwaway line which haven't pulled this out for a little bit.
Speaker A:But there are no throwaway lines in 911 from the ice skating call when Bobby reveals that he was junior pairs champion ice skater.
Speaker A:And everyone's like, what?
Speaker A:Lord drop?
Speaker A:But Eddie is the one that said, I thought you were a hockey player.
Speaker A:And Bobby responds with, who says you can't do both?
Speaker A:So there's something about this, like, duality of balancing masculine activities with, like, something more typically feminine.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Because everybody thinks figure skating is more of a women's sport.
Speaker A:And the way that that scene is immediately followed by that first fight for Eddie, that first match.
Speaker A:So it's Eddie leaning into this hyper masculinity, which I think could probably read into some more stuff about how, like, you know, healing people, nursing and medic stuff is sometimes thought of as, like, a woman's thing and which it's not.
Speaker A:But, you know, those, like, really stupid gender roles and how Eddie is kind of.
Speaker A:By almost killing a guy in this very hyper masculine arena and then saving him and do.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:He's kind of like living in both of those at the same time.
Speaker C:Also not reveal yet, but the ballroom dancing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:So there's like, there's that little Bobby Eddie nugget for you.
Speaker C:Bobby being a figure skater and Eddie being a ballroom dancer.
Speaker B:I also think it's very much like.
Speaker A:You can see, like, we.
Speaker B:The audience knows who Eddie is, and then we're reminded of who Eddie is, and he kind of is to a certain extent where it's like, yeah, oh, I'm a fighter.
Speaker B:But as soon as someone is in danger, it's not, oh, I'm out to protect myself, save myself and get out of there.
Speaker B:Which is what most people would have done.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:It was no, like, I need to save this guy.
Speaker B:And it wasn't even because he hurt him.
Speaker A:It's just the right thing to do.
Speaker B:It's just the right thing to do, and he has the means to do it.
Speaker A:That's what's so ingrained in Eddie.
Speaker A:That's, like, at the core who Eddie is, someone who wants to help people.
Speaker A:He even does it to his own detriment.
Speaker A:Like, he calls 911 and basically almost rats himself out because he could very easily have been picked up by the police again, and they probably wouldn't be so lenient this time.
Speaker B:And he could have left.
Speaker B:He could have left then after he called 91 1, but he wanted to stay and see that the guy was okay.
Speaker B:He wanted to make sure he was okay even.
Speaker A:Even after he.
Speaker A:Stupid But I know even after he asks Lena to, to let him know when like which hospital they're bringing him to.
Speaker A:And I think that's that responsible Eddie coming back in.
Speaker A:It's like he really can't escape the person who he is, even though he's trying so hard to because he hates it and he hates hating it.
Speaker B:No matter where you go, there you are.
Speaker A:And I think Ryan's performance with Eddie in like this episode, this scene, and also when he talks to Bobby as well is so good because he just looks so, boom, tired and done with everything.
Speaker A:It's like those half lidded eyes.
Speaker A:Just like he.
Speaker A:There's like almost no life in him at this moment.
Speaker A:Even though like to the outside it.
Speaker A:It looks like he's doing fine.
Speaker A:Again, you're seeing that with, with hen where two other people, they look like they're fine and they're not going through shit, but they really are.
Speaker A:And it's just like he.
Speaker A:It's done so well.
Speaker A:It's done so well.
Speaker A:Like Eddie, when he's talking to, to Lena, like he hates hearing what he knows to be true.
Speaker A:Like she's talking sense.
Speaker B:Yeah, he.
Speaker A:He knows what she's saying is true and correct and he should listen to her, but he's trying to bury it down anyway.
Speaker A:He's so like, like kind of batting her away and her concern, he's just like, whatever, fine, go away.
Speaker A:But I think that's like, it's acted very well.
Speaker A:And then can we talk about finally Eddie talking to somebody, confiding in somebody, finally communicating to somebody?
Speaker A:Thank God.
Speaker A:Not everything, but he was kind of forced to.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yes, his hand was forced.
Speaker B:Come sit down.
Speaker B:I'm your friend.
Speaker B:Bobby was like that.
Speaker B:I am your dad.
Speaker B:Boss.
Speaker B:Here's my disappointed, angry face.
Speaker B:Like, talk to me.
Speaker B:I love this scene.
Speaker B:It's one of my favorite Eddie scenes, actually.
Speaker B:It is so much of the core of like, who he still is.
Speaker B:Like, he still still has a lot of these same problems.
Speaker B:Not to the same extent, but it is very much like I'm all he has.
Speaker A:Like I have to hold it together, that control.
Speaker B:Like I have to be strong.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And I just don't think he ever learned how to let go of this anger with Shannon and I, underneath all the anger with Shannon is just hurt.
Speaker B:It's just feeling hurt and rejected and left again.
Speaker B:And it's not even that she died, it's that she was already leaving.
Speaker B:And you see that moment of realization cross Bobby's face when it just completely like softens when he Confesses that, like, when he's like, you know, she left again.
Speaker B:And he's like, she died.
Speaker B:And he's like, no, she wanted a divorce.
Speaker B:And his.
Speaker B:And Bobby's face is like, yeah, everything about you makes sense now.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because it's Bobby finally realizing and understanding what.
Speaker A:Why Eddie thinks he's such a failure for everything that he's done.
Speaker A:Right for Christopher, right in his career and every.
Speaker A:It really seems that Bobby sees Eddie in this moment.
Speaker A:And I think sometimes maybe more than, like, Bobby had seen Buck, you know?
Speaker B:Oh, he always saw Eddie better than he saw Buck.
Speaker A:There's also something so deep that Bobby can relate to with Eddie in losing Shannon and hating yourself for.
Speaker A:For things that are out of your control.
Speaker B:I think they handle emotions the same way, too.
Speaker B:So it's just easier for him to understand how Eddie's brain works.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think.
Speaker A:I think they do operate much more similarly and.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So that whole conversation, it's all about, like.
Speaker A:Bobby really gets to the.
Speaker A:To the nitty gritty of it, where it's like.
Speaker A:It's all about control and because Eddie is the person who keeps it together no matter what life throws at him.
Speaker A:And Eddie says, lots of people have it worse.
Speaker A:And it's just like.
Speaker B:Which is just such a bullshit thing because it's like, sure, people have it worse.
Speaker B:Does that make your own needs and feelings and wants any less meaningless or.
Speaker A:Less valuable or less valid?
Speaker A:Absolutely not.
Speaker A:That's your experience that you're living in.
Speaker B:Like, that's also not how psychology works.
Speaker B:You can't go, well, suck it up, because, you know, people have it worse than you.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker C:That's probably something that he learned growing up, for sure.
Speaker A:That sounds like a Ramonism.
Speaker C:It is a Ramonism, Sure.
Speaker C:Well, actually, no, it's both of them.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:It goes along with the whole, like, just suck it up.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's the.
Speaker B:It's all of that kind of just toxic.
Speaker B:The toxic masculinity of like.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:One of the reasons why men's mental health really needs to be destigmatized is because they are taught this kind of.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's very normal for women to be emotional, to show their emotions outward, to talk about their emotions with their friends.
Speaker A:That communication is a lot easier.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's not only expected, it's.
Speaker B:It's something that good friends, like, try and people to.
Speaker B:To do.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:See, their friend is going through something.
Speaker A:How people bond.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But I just know that, like, kids.
Speaker B:I mean, I can tell you just like, with two Younger brothers.
Speaker B:The way I was taught to deal with my emotions, it's different from the way they were taught to deal with.
Speaker A:Their emotions, which is wild, because you would think, you know, siblings would be taught the same thing.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:So, yeah, that's absolutely instilled in him from his parents and still fucking him up to this day.
Speaker B:So I also think that when Bobby says, I just don't want you to have to lose everything before you allow yourself to feel something.
Speaker A:I love that line.
Speaker B:I love it.
Speaker B:It's so good.
Speaker B:It works for Eddie so well.
Speaker B:But Bobby would know.
Speaker B:Bobby would know, because rock bottom, you know, we now know in hindsight, everything that.
Speaker B:That happened to him that led to his, like, addiction was from his childhood, and he never dealt with that.
Speaker B:He never dealt with all of the trauma from his father, and that led him to his addiction, which led to him losing his family in one of.
Speaker A:The most traumatic ways possible.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:And then it wasn't until after that happened that he allowed himself to open up and deal with those feelings.
Speaker A:And, you know, for Bobby, it was him reaching rock bottom again at the very end of 104.
Speaker A:Worst day ever, where Hen and buck find him having relapsed, and he just, like, collapses and asks for help.
Speaker A:So all of that feeling that he was pushing away just like.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:Washes over him like a tidal wave.
Speaker A:So he.
Speaker A:I'm sorry.
Speaker A:So he really understands the.
Speaker A:The potential for Eddie to fall even further than he is right now.
Speaker A:At what point would it be too late?
Speaker A:And I think he also is protective of Eddie because Eddie also has Christopher, and he knows how important Christopher is to him, too, and doesn't want Eddie to do anything to jeopardize that, because realistically, him being in Fight Club is very potentially jeopardizing to.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Having.
Speaker B:Keeping Chris having custody of his child.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So, like, it's at that moment, it's that line that Bobby says that kind of gives Eddie permission to break down.
Speaker A:And I think we see this a lot when he has these really emotional, like, breakthroughs or.
Speaker A:Or moments.
Speaker A:It's because somebody kind of prods him a little bit, gives him permission to open up those floodgates because he's trying so hard to keep them at bay and keep them closed.
Speaker A:But if someone else gives him permission, then he kind of allows himself to.
Speaker A:To, you know, be swept away with that.
Speaker A:And he.
Speaker A:He tells.
Speaker A:He tells Bobby about Shannon and about the divorce, and it's.
Speaker A:I think it's the first time, the only person that any time he ever.
Speaker B:Talks about anyone Ever talks about it again.
Speaker B:Because it probably doesn't even tell Frank.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Why would he tell Frank?
Speaker A:But like, everything.
Speaker A:So everything that Eddie says about, like, Chris needs him to be in control because he can't.
Speaker A:Because Eddie can't let him down again.
Speaker A:And all of these things that he says where he stayed away too long and it broke Shannon.
Speaker B:He.
Speaker A:He couldn't stop her from running away.
Speaker A:He couldn't bring her back home.
Speaker A:He let her back into his life.
Speaker A:All of these things.
Speaker A:He knew better that Shannon was going to break Christopher's heart again.
Speaker A:All of those things he is putting himself to blame for.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:So deeply.
Speaker B:Call that.
Speaker A:It's not a savior complex, it's a martyr complex.
Speaker A:Maybe something similar like that.
Speaker A:But taking on the.
Speaker A:The fault of all of these things.
Speaker B:That are not a fault because, like, he was doing that his entire childhood too.
Speaker B:So again, that's why it's.
Speaker A:It's all of that responsibility that Eddie was brought up to take on.
Speaker A:And again, he never learned that, like, some things don't have to be your responsibility.
Speaker A:Some things you don't have to.
Speaker B:Individual actions are their own responsibility.
Speaker A:In.
Speaker A:In addition to what we just said about how Bobby sees Eddie and they have like, that connection there.
Speaker A:Remember like with Dose when we were talking about Bobby being Atlas and shouldering the universe and everything?
Speaker A:Eddie does that too, kind of to a little bit smaller scale, but it's the same thing.
Speaker A:He's just shouldering so much that he doesn't need to.
Speaker A:And it's also.
Speaker A:I think it's very interesting phrasing when he says he knew that Shannon would break Christopher's heart again.
Speaker A:He never talks about his own.
Speaker A:It's always Christopher.
Speaker C:But see, and that's where sometimes I.
Speaker C:That's where I feel like he uses Christopher as like a substitute or like a shield.
Speaker C:A shield.
Speaker C:Because to me, I can just.
Speaker C:To me, I'm like, reading between the lines when he brings up.
Speaker C:Christopher really feel like it's his way of also kind of like talking about himself, but without realizing that he actually is admitting to that.
Speaker A:I think that's exactly what it is.
Speaker A:It truly is.
Speaker A:Like both layers.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:See?
Speaker B:Both things.
Speaker B:Because it's.
Speaker B:She didn't break his heart.
Speaker B:As in he was heartbroken that she didn't want to be with him.
Speaker B:No, it was.
Speaker B:It was the heartbreak of being left and not being enough and not wanting.
Speaker A:To be with Christopher and.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so he's just.
Speaker A:He's just so mad at himself and.
Speaker A:And he says, like, at the conclusion, he's like, he's.
Speaker A:He's so mad at her, and he's mad at himself because he's mad at a dead person, but also because he's mad at himself because he forgave her for everything, but it wasn't enough and he wasn't enough.
Speaker A:So it's.
Speaker A:It's all of that.
Speaker A:This is.
Speaker A:This is like one of those pivotal, like, Eddie scenes where it's just, like, you see so much of him emotionally, and so much of that is just like, that rage turned inward on himself, wanting to be enough, being too responsible, trying to maintain control, and, like, hating all of that.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:That's his plight.
Speaker B:If you take this conversation, especially that part of the conversation, and you put it side by side.
Speaker B:Oh, man.
Speaker B:The conversation he has in 709 with Big Shannon.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Big Shannon.
Speaker B:It's the same thing.
Speaker A:It is, yeah.
Speaker B:He never dealt with any of this.
Speaker B:It's broken.
Speaker B:I'm broken.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:You left.
Speaker B:I didn't get a goodbye.
Speaker B:Like, it's the same.
Speaker B:Like, he never dealt with this.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's like, it's not one of those things that you can, like, be done with dealing with.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:No, but you have to.
Speaker A:But you have to.
Speaker A:But you have to, like, learn coping mechanisms to be able to, like, deal with it on the daily.
Speaker B:Shannon is the most therapy he's had about that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because I remember, like, her showing up and us being like, oh, no, no, no, leave, leave.
Speaker B:And we were.
Speaker B:Then I think Sil was like, wait, maybe it's therapy.
Speaker A:It was role play therapy, which is great, but.
Speaker B:No, it's better than the nothing that we've had for the past at least.
Speaker A:He was six years confronting himself about some of it.
Speaker A:And, like, it hand.
Speaker A:You're right.
Speaker A:It really is.
Speaker A:I would love to look at these scenes together and, like, compare them.
Speaker A:Yeah, maybe we can do that sometime.
Speaker A:But it's.
Speaker A:It's just like this is who Eddie is, like, at his, like, bearing it all.
Speaker C:Mm.
Speaker B:This is his root.
Speaker B:His root trauma, his root driving force.
Speaker B:It.
Speaker A:It.
Speaker B:It.
Speaker B:Like, if you want to show someone who Eddie is, just show them this conversation.
Speaker B:Like, it shows you what he's motivated by.
Speaker B:And that's Christopher.
Speaker B:It's doing everything for Christopher.
Speaker B:He does not care.
Speaker B:He does not care about himself, like, at all.
Speaker B:No, it's showing the motivation as Christopher.
Speaker B:It's showing that he blames himself for literally everything that ever goes wrong ever with Christopher.
Speaker B:Not ever.
Speaker B:Not for everything.
Speaker B:Just with Christopher.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's fair.
Speaker B:With everyone else, that's A different story.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's a different conversation completely.
Speaker B:But with Christopher, his fault always shows you that he has capital a abandonment issues.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:And that he has never felt like he's enough.
Speaker B:He never felt like he was enough for his parents.
Speaker B:He never felt like he was enough for Shannon.
Speaker B:He never felt like he was enough for Christopher.
Speaker B:Like, that's just it.
Speaker B:That's his character.
Speaker A:I wonder if there's ever a point where he felt like enough ish.
Speaker A:If like maybe like moments when he's on the job or like moments when he was in the army, but I don't think so because so much of that is attached to the not enough parts.
Speaker C:No, he doesn't think he's enough.
Speaker C:Like when you think about like how he save people in the actual, like while he was in the army and he was like, oh, I just did the right thing, even though I got a silver, he doesn't think he's worthy of.
Speaker C:Worthy enough.
Speaker A:Even though he was of the commendation.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:When you look at moments like in 704, right, where he does the partial raboa and you see that like one eight, sorry, eight hundred four.
Speaker B:And he has that brief moment of like, elation of like, oh my God, like I saved him immediately.
Speaker B:And then the kid calls him dad and all the guilt and the shame and the self hatred just rushes right back.
Speaker A:No fucking semi truck.
Speaker A:Oh my God, you're so right.
Speaker A:Any moment where I think he does feel like enough, I think is immediately superseded by.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Feelings of self hatred.
Speaker B:And he punishes himself.
Speaker B:We know this.
Speaker B:I mean, we knew this before Father Brian pointed it out, but you know, we know it for sure now after season eight.
Speaker B:Or it's like you don't feel worthy of joy or forgiveness.
Speaker B:And he punishes himself.
Speaker B:Like he's been doing that earlier than Chris leaving.
Speaker A:I think he's been doing that earlier than we met him.
Speaker B:Oh, for sure.
Speaker B:But it's like anytime he feels like he did something good, I'm sure verbally he's like, but remember this one thing he did?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Remember this other thing you did?
Speaker B:Like, I just don't think that he allows himself to like, ever feel comfortable, confident.
Speaker B:No, I don't think it's ever been enough.
Speaker B:I don't think he's ever like gone through a day and been like, I did good today.
Speaker B:I feel satisfied.
Speaker A:That inner self critic in him is so loud that it almost takes up all of his brain space.
Speaker A:And I think it's this makes it even that much more interesting when we look at how we were introduced to Eddie with that veneer of competency and confidence.
Speaker A:And like, we're seeing now with.
Speaker A:I mean, we knew it was a mask, Right?
Speaker A:But, like, it's so fascinating to see how shallow that mask is and how deep everything else is that he's.
Speaker A:That he's trying to push down so hard because it's just, like, he does not feel this in the slightest, but he.
Speaker A:But he puts it on and he plays the part because that's what's expected of him.
Speaker C:And it's that eldest daughter syndrome for real.
Speaker C:Making sure, like, everything outside is, you know, perfect, being successful outwardly, that nothing can go wrong.
Speaker C:Meanwhile, you're, like, beating yourself up internally.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I think the closest.
Speaker B:And, like, we don't ever see this, but I feel like the closest he ever comes to, like, a full day of just, like, not beating himself up is, like, when it's just him and Chris for a whole day or him and Buck and Chris and they're doing something that is focused on Chris, and, like, he's really happy, and then he can just, like, not think about it.
Speaker A:Also, maybe the basketball pickup game before he gets injured.
Speaker A:Why would you.
Speaker A:He looked like he was having so much fun.
Speaker B:He was.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because his book was fun and fancy free.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:And then his book did.
Speaker A:So it wasn't a full day, but it was momentary.
Speaker A:Maybe.
Speaker B:How did you get him to come?
Speaker B:He always says no.
Speaker B:What?
Speaker A:I ask.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, my God, Eddie, why are you the character.
Speaker A:The most character ever?
Speaker B:Like, the best character of all time.
Speaker B:Anyway, I need more Eddie.
Speaker B:A plot.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yes, please.
Speaker B:He's so interesting.
Speaker B:There's so much to do with him.
Speaker B:Because you've let him wallow in all the.
Speaker B:For so long.
Speaker B:It's still there.
Speaker B:Like, there's still so much of that to dig into, and it's not even.
Speaker A:That far under the surface.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's there.
Speaker B:This has been a evisceration of Amunda Diaz's psyche.
Speaker B:I mean, it's not our fault.
Speaker A:The episode was.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's true.
Speaker A:But it's so interesting.
Speaker A:All right, let's.
Speaker C:Let's.
Speaker B:Let's talk about some gay stuff, please.
Speaker B:My God.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:I'm gonna start off with my grasping for straws things.
Speaker A:Love it.
Speaker B:So, like, Rachel was talking about subverting masculine expectations earlier, and I went, oh, interesting.
Speaker B:About, like, at the ice skating rink when, like, they find, like, Bobby reveals that he was a champion pairs figure skater, and Eddie thought he was just a hockey player.
Speaker B:I thought you Played hockey, and he's like, you can do both.
Speaker B:Walks away so.
Speaker B:Well, first of all, this piece of lore did not exist then, but, like, looking at that now, especially knowing that Eddie.
Speaker B:Ballroom dancing.
Speaker B:So interesting.
Speaker B:So interesting because he does.
Speaker B:He does ballroom dancing, which is looked at as more of, like, a feminine thing.
Speaker B:And he also does, like, what.
Speaker B:What does his character do?
Speaker B:It's not mma.
Speaker C:Thai.
Speaker B:Muay Thai.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:You know, he does that and he boxes.
Speaker B:He does all these masculine things.
Speaker B:So I don't know, just something about subverting masculine expectations.
Speaker B:And like, Eddie, you can be both.
Speaker B:You can be masculine, but also soft.
Speaker B:And also.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And also for Buck, like, also watch telenovelas.
Speaker A:Yes, both is good.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:And he watches telenovelas too.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:So, like, again, Eddie really does kind of exist in this middle, like.
Speaker A:Like the middle of a Venn diagram.
Speaker A:Right in.
Speaker A:In that.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:But he.
Speaker A:But so often he feels like he has to lean one way.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:Thanks, Ramon.
Speaker B:And Helena, I hate you feeling like.
Speaker C:He has to perform.
Speaker A:But also this.
Speaker A:This can go for Buck, too, with, like.
Speaker A:You can do both.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Last dose.
Speaker A:My sexuality.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:I think I specifically glommed on to Eddie because.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's the more to Eddie.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:Then we have that whole scene with Buck and Eddie when Eddie pulls up in his.
Speaker B:What I like to call his denial truck.
Speaker A:Oh, my God.
Speaker A:How have we not been saying that the whole time?
Speaker B:I say it in my head.
Speaker A:No, you should.
Speaker A:You should have said that out loud, like, a while ago.
Speaker A:The denial truck.
Speaker A:I love that there's.
Speaker B:So what is he denying?
Speaker B:So many things.
Speaker A:Everything.
Speaker B:So many things.
Speaker B:But he rolls up in it, and Buck is like, what the fuck is happening?
Speaker B:Like, he's making.
Speaker B:He's making the small talk, and he's smiling, but he's, like, so interesting.
Speaker B:Why did you get this?
Speaker B:He says, I didn't know that you were thinking of getting a new car.
Speaker B:Turns out he wasn't.
Speaker B:But also, I had a flash forward.
Speaker B:A flash forward to 809.
Speaker C:Yes, I did, too.
Speaker A:I had this, like, flash forward, but.
Speaker B:Eddie's like, I didn't know you were thinking about adopting a dog.
Speaker B:It's like, because they tell each other everything.
Speaker B:Like, they can't make major life decisions, approach each other without consulting the other person.
Speaker B:That's married behavior.
Speaker A:They tell each other everything.
Speaker A:Except when Eddie doesn't tell Buck about the big stuff that he should absolutely.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:Be telling Buck about.
Speaker A:But that's not usually on an impulse like this, which is why it's so weird in Buck's POV Then the scene.
Speaker B:In Buck's kitchen were talking about hen, like his chimney is like, there's something going on with her, but she won't talk to me.
Speaker B:And Buck's like, yeah, there's something definitely going on with her.
Speaker B:Eddie too.
Speaker B:It's like purpose of nothing.
Speaker B:Do you think it's the Santa Ana?
Speaker B:Do you think your best friend purchased a $60,000 truck because of the Santa Anna winds?
Speaker C:He just really wanted to talk about.
Speaker B:He didn't really want to talk about Eddie.
Speaker B:He was, it's relatable.
Speaker A:He was looking for any excuse.
Speaker B:So then, you know, chimney basically outs Maddie.
Speaker B:Makes her.
Speaker A:Oh, my God.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Makes her, you know, tell that story and.
Speaker B:But then chimney's like, wait, so what's.
Speaker A:Going on with Eddie?
Speaker B:Sammy So, so confused because no one noticed that anything was off about Eddie other than Buck.
Speaker A:That's so true.
Speaker C:Not even bobby.
Speaker A:Everyone noticed 10.
Speaker A:Yeah, everyone clocked that because she visibly.
Speaker B:Wasn'T the same at work.
Speaker B:But like, Eddie is so good at his masks.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:His neat little masks.
Speaker B:So he was completely the same at work.
Speaker C:It's how.
Speaker C:It's like how Bobby describes him.
Speaker C:Oh, you're the guy who always, like, seems to keep it together.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker C:Keyword seems.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:But it's also so interesting too that nobody else noticed because, like what we were talking about with Eddie, he's just like, his eyes are half masked.
Speaker A:He's got no light in them.
Speaker A:He's just like, you know, a little short tempered and just like a little dodgy with things.
Speaker A:And nobody noticed except for Buck.
Speaker A:Like, that's not like you at all.
Speaker B:Yes, that's what I wanted to talk about too.
Speaker B:He noticed because of like the truck, obviously.
Speaker A:He was like, that's a big red spot.
Speaker B:That's not like you.
Speaker B:That's not impulsive, Eddie.
Speaker B:But I also think he was flashing back to like a couple other things, including, like the bruises.
Speaker B:Yes, the bruises.
Speaker B:And when they hug, he gave him that look that he was like, why are you in pain from a hug?
Speaker B:What is happening?
Speaker A:Why did you cringe back from our very lovely super bro hug?
Speaker C:Why do you hate me, bro?
Speaker B:Why do you hate me?
Speaker B:You want me dead?
Speaker A:Why didn't you want to hug longer when we were making up after our divorce?
Speaker A:And then you looked like you were in pain.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think he's really connecting the dots of like, there's something to miss here.
Speaker B:He is not.
Speaker B:He is not himself.
Speaker B:Something's going on, but he doesn't like.
Speaker B:He has no idea what, but he Knows that something's up.
Speaker B:And that's just such a.
Speaker B:Like when you're part partners, romantic partners.
Speaker A:With someone.
Speaker B:You, you should, if it's like a healthy relationship, know them better than anyone else.
Speaker B:Like you know them better than their best friend.
Speaker B:You know them better than their family.
Speaker A:Inside and out.
Speaker B:Yeah, inside and out.
Speaker B:So you will pick up on little things that other people won't.
Speaker A:Okay, so back to the ice skating pile up.
Speaker A:The cold opens for this kind of stuff are so interesting because it actually like gives you so much in there.
Speaker A:So you have the two skaters who are playing Hansel and Gretel.
Speaker A:I don't remember their names.
Speaker A:They're obvious.
Speaker A:They were in a relationship.
Speaker A:They were breaking.
Speaker A:They were currently in the process of breaking up.
Speaker A:Which also like, who else have we seen have a.
Speaker A:Have a divorce slash breakup in this.
Speaker C:Season because they wanted to let go.
Speaker A:Let.
Speaker C:Let them do something.
Speaker C:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So that's part of it too.
Speaker A:So when they are fighting and breaking up and just like having a literal lover's spat, it's the, the, the witch Randy again who is hilarious and just says, you two are exhausting.
Speaker A:Where have we heard that before?
Speaker A:Except it's a direct callback to the grocery store fight with Buck and Eddie because Eddie called Buck.
Speaker A:Eddie said, you're exhausting to Buck.
Speaker A:So you have the use of.
Speaker A:Of this same phrasing here in relation to an actual romantic couple going through a breakup.
Speaker A:And the same stuff was said.
Speaker A:Like it.
Speaker A:It absolutely recontextualizes the grocery store scene as romantic too.
Speaker A:Like no if, ands or buts about it.
Speaker A:And then they're also talking about how the skater who plays Gretel is Hansel's partner.
Speaker A:Like they wanted to be partners and, and he, he was breaking up with her because he wanted her so like you said, to live her dream.
Speaker A:But her, her of being on Disney on Ice.
Speaker A:But she was kind of.
Speaker A:She was kind of giving it up because that's not her dream.
Speaker A:Her dream is to be with her partner, the guy who plays Hansel.
Speaker A:Which is also very similar to Buck giving up the settlement to stay with the 118 and Eddie as his partner.
Speaker A:Like he doesn't.
Speaker A:He.
Speaker A:He wants to continue on with his dream with the people that he loves.
Speaker A:Specifically Eddie as his partner.
Speaker A:There's a lot of emphasis on partner here in platonic for like chim and hen.
Speaker A:But then you also have romantic partners like Chimney and Maddie and Bobby and Athena.
Speaker A:And a lot of that parallels Eddie being romantic partners.
Speaker A:That's All I had about that.
Speaker A:But the.
Speaker A:You two are exhausting.
Speaker A:Like, come on.
Speaker C:I don't know why I didn't.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker A:At.
Speaker C:When I watched it, I didn't connect it to the.
Speaker C:Your exhausting scene, but I was just like, wow, I feel like I've seen this fight before.
Speaker C:I've seen this film before.
Speaker A:Because you did.
Speaker B:So interesting.
Speaker B:Because just to bounce off of what Rachel was just talking about, she says you broke up with me so I wouldn't turn down the job.
Speaker B:What does that sound like?
Speaker B:If you need to be pissed at me to make this easier for you, then be pissed off.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:Oh, my God.
Speaker B:Same energy.
Speaker B:Also the same energy as, like, trying to, you know, selflessly remove obstacles from your romantic partner's life, even if that obstacle is you.
Speaker A:Jesus.
Speaker B:That's a great way to put it.
Speaker B:You know, so like this.
Speaker B:In this case, it was her career ambition.
Speaker B:But, you know, with Buck and Eddie in season eight, it's.
Speaker B:The obstacle is that, you know, Eddie needs to sublet the house, his house, so that he can go be with Christopher because he needs to do that, because that's where he belongs.
Speaker B:And, you know, Buck does that.
Speaker B:So interesting.
Speaker A:It's like this.
Speaker A:This sacrifice or romantic partners, which I don't think I really talked about in themes, but.
Speaker A:But sacrifice I think was.
Speaker A:I think I was grasping at straws.
Speaker A:But it, like, makes more sense in this context with.
Speaker A:With what you.
Speaker A:I think I mentioned it a little bit, but, like, specifically sacrificing things for.
Speaker A:For your partners, your romantic partners in.
Speaker A:In the context like this, like, that's.
Speaker A:That's something.
Speaker B:So interesting for them to.
Speaker B:Just.
Speaker B:To continue paralleling so many people who are romantically with each other could mean nothing.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker A:Just for kicks and gigs, technically, we.
Speaker C:Already talked about this when I was talking about, like, how interesting the conversation in the bedroom was.
Speaker A:The.
Speaker A:The Henren and Buddy parallels with dealing with grief between this and 817.
Speaker B:We didn't talk about it in a romantic context.
Speaker B:Dealing with grief and how you process that as a couple.
Speaker A:Yeah, we talked about it in.
Speaker A:In, like, a more general, brief way, but just also the fact that it was Hen and Kieran who are romantic and how similarly that they're literally married and how similarly that lines up with 817, which, again, we.
Speaker A:We have said that kitchen fight.
Speaker A:We've said that is a married couple having.
Speaker A:Having a dispute.
Speaker C:Marital.
Speaker C:Marital dispute.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker B:I think it's very normal when you are grieving together as a couple.
Speaker B:Something for there to be A lot of tension there because everyone grieves differently.
Speaker B:And it's very rare, I feel like, that people dating each other, married to each other, grieve the exact same way.
Speaker B:So there's gonna be a lot of just, like, layered emotion, some resentment towards each other because one perceives the other is not as sad as they are.
Speaker C:And it has similar beats too, right?
Speaker C:Because, like, we see Eddie and 817 talking to hen and Karen, the actual married couple.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:And then here we have Hen talking to Athena and talking about how she's worried and frustrated and exhausted and I mean, so of course the conversations are very different because, like, Eddie is keeping it a little bit more close to the chest as opposed to, like, how, like, Hen is more comfortable to speak about it, which really is.
Speaker C:Because at the end of the day, they're not actually in that.
Speaker C:In that level, that stage of that relation, you know, in their relationship.
Speaker C:They're not married, even though we all know you might as well be.
Speaker B:That is married coded.
Speaker C:They're married coded.
Speaker C:So, like, and that.
Speaker C:And that's where, you know, what is it?
Speaker B:Oh, my nurse has said they act.
Speaker A:Like a couple, which is.
Speaker C:I feel like when Karen asks him, oh, you're worried about Buck's level of worry.
Speaker C:It's like, you know, like side eye eyebrow raising.
Speaker C:Like, how interesting.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, please say more.
Speaker C:Even though we know that he wasn't going to say, honestly, Hen kind of saves him from saving, from having to say more.
Speaker A:Yeah, shouldn't have done that.
Speaker C:Shouldn't have done that.
Speaker B:But that is such an interesting parallel that like, to extend it.
Speaker B:Talk to someone else about the, the grief.
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:And not just their own grief, but the, the grief of their partner and how the grief of their partner is affecting them.
Speaker B:And then after having that talk, went to talk to their partner to try and talk to them about their grief, and it goes horribly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And there ends up being more resentment at the end of conversation than there was at the beginning.
Speaker A:That's so clever of you to, like, realize, to broaden the scope of this parallel here to those other conversations is kind of wild.
Speaker C:So I think we did talk about, like, the, like, how the level, like everyone's level of grief or having to go get over grief is, like, different for everyone.
Speaker C:But I think, I think when Hen says the, the line where she's like, we're here, you're, you're, you're living, breathing son is here, you know, when she's expressing all of, all of that to Athena, it's similar to like how, like with Eddie, how he feels, where he's.
Speaker C:He like that Buck hasn't asked them about like, how he's dealing.
Speaker C:I feel like that's similar.
Speaker C:It's like Buck is so internalized in his own grief that he's not like, you know, looking to his surroundings and being there for Eddie.
Speaker B:Like, that's kind of seeing what his partner needs.
Speaker B:He's so wrapped up in his own grief, he's not seeing how much his partner needs him.
Speaker A:Which.
Speaker A:Which we know he's so attuned to Eddie because he notices things about Eddie when he's feeling off his game that nobody else does.
Speaker A:So that really does show, like, how deep Buck is that he can't notice that because otherwise.
Speaker A:Otherwise he absolutely would have.
Speaker A:He would have clocked it if he weren't dealing with his own stuff.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I can't wait to like, watch more.
Speaker A:Good job us.
Speaker A:Yeah, good job, Sil.
Speaker C:I can't wait to like, kind of like the same thing with Bethena parallels.
Speaker C:I can't wait to.
Speaker C:I feel like I'm more familiar with like maddening and Buddy perils than I am with like Bethena and Bethena and then Henry paralleling Buddy.
Speaker B:There's so many Buddy parallels are slept on.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I really feel like they are.
Speaker A:Which is so funny because it's like it's the other same sex couple.
Speaker A:You would think, like.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I think there's a lot more.
Speaker C:One of them has.
Speaker C:One of them has a biological kid that looks like the.
Speaker C:The parent and the other parent, the step parent.
Speaker B:Well, it's not actually biologically.
Speaker A:Well, not related.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But it's like Denny still looks like he's related to Karen.
Speaker A:Karen.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:By some like magic of science.
Speaker A:Like.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker A:I think it's gonna be really interesting to like hone in on more of the Henry Buddy parallels because they are slept on.
Speaker A:Like it.
Speaker A:I think you have to just like dig a little deeper for them.
Speaker A:But like.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And maybe it's also because a lot of those parallels are like the Henri stuff is paralleled to.
Speaker A:To more recent buddy stuff.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Because.
Speaker A:Because Buddy's relationship, like Eddie's relationship have has grown and developed and matured so much.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And with Hen and Karen being like the.
Speaker A:The most established relationship on the show.
Speaker A:Like they've been married for longer than Bobby and Athena and Jimmy and Maddie.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So like they have the longest relationship.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Compared to everyone else.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Eddie have like the second by far.
Speaker B:Like how old.
Speaker B:How old is Denny in the first season.
Speaker B:Like, is he similar aged to Christopher?
Speaker C:That's what I would feel like.
Speaker A:He was a little younger though.
Speaker B:So like six.
Speaker A:Maybe like five because he and hair.
Speaker A:Well, he and Harry are similar.
Speaker A:Okay, wait, he and Harry were similar ages.
Speaker A:Harry was like.
Speaker A:I think Harry was like seven.
Speaker A:Wait, but.
Speaker A:But Denny I think is younger than Harry.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker B:They're putting his birthday on 91 1.
Speaker B: s some time between September: Speaker A:Okay, so that would be 8 at the start of the series.
Speaker A:8.
Speaker A:Ish.
Speaker B:So they've been together for like almost 16 years when all these other couples are starting to get together the beginning seasons, like, they've been together for eight years.
Speaker A:Henry is our established relationship.
Speaker A:AO3 tag.
Speaker B:I love it.
Speaker B:Yeah, I can't wait to find more.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's like a little like panning for gold.
Speaker A:I don't like a gold rush.
Speaker B:Jesus.
Speaker C:Okay, remember, don't join an illegal fighting.
Speaker B:Ring, but if you do, take a buddy with you.
Speaker B:Thank you for listening to the Buddy System podcast from start to finish.
Speaker C:We literally cannot shut up about 91 1, so please come talk to us on your favorite social media platform.
Speaker A:We are at Buddy System POD everywhere.
Speaker A:That's B U D D IE System pod.
Speaker B:Leave a five star review on Spotify or Apple podcasts to get a personal shout out in the next episode.
Speaker B:The Buddy System is a nerd Virgin Media production featuring music from Divinity.
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Speaker A:Catch you next time.
Speaker A:And don't forget, bring a buddy with you.
