3.10: Christmas Spirit

9-1-1. What's your emergency?

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

I'm Alice.

And I'm Ellen.

Thank you to everyone who has listened to our episodes so far, who have shared our social media posts and who have rated us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. We appreciate it. Thank you also to everyone who has left comments on whichever platform it is that they are listening to us. Uh, special shout out to Ella, who made the very unwise decision to listen to our episode, "Bobby Begins Again" in a public place. Um, and if you've listened to that episode, you know why that was an unwise decision.

A literal,

a literal rooster.

It might take Ella a while to get up to this episode. So, hi Ella.

This week's episode from memory does not have any roosters in it, so you should be safe to listen to this one in public. Wherever you are listening to it,

I don't know. We might end up being unintentionally hilarious. Who knows?

Well, we do, we do have a history of going off on tangents, so lord knows where we will end up this week.

That doesn't sound like us.

Look, I hope we make someone laugh. Okay? If we made you laugh, please let us know. Like I just, all, I hope for this episode. Anyway, go on.

Um, but before we talk about this, uh, rooster-less episode, let's go back and discuss what happened last time on 9-1-1.

Yeah, so last week on 9-1-1, everybody wrapped up their trauma just in time for the holidays with our favorite therapist, Frank. Uh, meanwhile, Bobby was caught in a tunnel with a radioactive fire.

All right, so this week we're gonna, we are, we are heading like, even though it is now March, just had to remember which month it was there. It is now March. Um, we are going back to Christmas 2019. We are, um, in episode 10, which is titled "Christmas Spirit", uh, which first aired Yes, December, 2019.

Yes.

Um, discussion of domestic violence and abuse during therapy, including flashbacks, a parent at threat and the child having to do CPR, and PTSD. And I guess we can also include Christmas as a trigger because I have to apologize to people of other faiths who don't celebrate Christmas, for instance. 'cause we always seem to end up with Christmas episodes in these shows. I don't know, like they never seem to include any other holidays for other faiths.

I was just wondering why we never get a Thanksgiving episode. I mean, this is a very American show, but they seem to go from the Halloween episode to the Christmas episode with no mention of Thanksgiving. And surely if what I see in American television is correct, the number of people like trying to deep fry a turkey, I would anticipate there would be many, many a call out for like oil burns.

That's true

during Thanksgiving.

There must be heaps of people who do themselves a mischief while cooking turkeys.

Yeah. Like they do Halloween and then they just don't do Thanksgiving.

That's what I mean. Yeah. Like why not?

Interesting.

Um, while we are talking about, if anyone actually listened to the holiday junkie episode that we just posted a couple of weeks ago, please let us know. Um, if you enjoyed that and if you like watching things along with us, like we'd probably be happy to do something like that again sometime, but yeah. Just,

oh, let's make Ellen sit through a Step Up movie.

Oh my God. Yes,

I would do that. That'd be fine. That'd be great. But the thing is, um, it was perfectly timed because just as I had been finishing up that episode to post, I then came and watched this episode. So I was like, oh, we are back into the Christmas spirit.

We're having Christmas in March, it's fine.

And seeing Maddie like getting all, um, excited about Christmas at the end of this was pretty funny. So

yeah, this episode as well will be airing, uh, once 9-1-1 is back from hiatus.

Oh, yeah.

So, uh, now while you're listening

to this, so we're gradually catching up.

Bex and I may be dead. We'll find out. Um,

well, don't say that. You might be despairing or you might be like really, really happy. Who knows?

Yeah, that's it.

We'll find out.

Uh, but as of now, it has not aired yet. So we're very sad.

And I may have blown away in a cyclone. Who knows the future is in the, anyway, um,

Ellen is gonna be literally Ellen of Oz, because she's gonna be blown to the land of Oz

I'm gonna be taken away to a different place. Oh God. Let's hope not actually. No, you know what? Totally take me away to different place like this, this, this Earth is not going well at the moment. Um, anyway, let's go into this episode. So we, we we're hit in the face immediately with Christmas because we hear, O Come, All Ye Faithful playing. We have a shopping center parking lot which is full of cars, people in line, but car parks and getting upset at each other for stealing car parks.

I'm gonna tangent already, but literally last week I was in line.

Oh God, how many minutes are we into it?

Yeah, we've tangented it already. It's fine. Um, I was in line for McDonald's and like there was a bunch of people waiting to get into the drive-through 'cause it was lunchtime and there's only one McDonald's in town. And so I was like waiting in line and then a car just like cut down the side and like went in around everyone else and we were all just like, no, what the hell? And of course it was a Commodore.

How how can you do that though? Normally they're all boxed in by gardens or...,

yeah. So the one in town, um, like the line for the drive through is on like, 'cause it's a really old McDonald's, like the position of it. Um, but the line to go in the drive through, you sort of all, like, we all go to the left and then if you need to exit from the car park, you just go down the right to get out.

Oh, okay.

So we're all in the left.

So you can drive along beside.

Yeah. And so he just drove along the side, like down the other way. Um, like down the way that is usually the exit. Um, and just like went in and like the car, 'cause I was like just behind, but the car who was about to go in, just like lay on their horn and the guy just like kept ordering like normal. And we were all just like, what the fuck? Like I'm like, man, if I wasn't a, you know, five foot two, small person, I'd, um, go out and fight them, but I can't be bothered.

At least he didn't do an Athena and like drive to the front of the line, sort of back up to the window and force everybody to scatter.

Anyway, yes, this woman is, she finds a car park and she goes into the store, which is absolute chaos.

It's absolute chaos and everybody seems to have left their manners at home because the, uh, at the, the protagonist of this particular scene, which we never get a name for her. So

of course we don't,

we're gonna call, no, we're gonna be calling her like "the woman" through this entire thing, not because we, uh, are trying to disparage her, but simply because in the,

she's not named

episode, she is not named, I will say that the closed captions give her a name, but I'm sticking with my principle of if, if we do not hear a name in the dialogue, it does not exist. So, the woman holds a door out being kind and courteous to one person, and then like five people just barrel through her in both directions. So she, like, she was already upset because she'd been sniped for her car spot, and now everybody is just literally walking over her.

Yeah. It, it really does show the chaos of Christmas and it's a little bit of that like Black Friday vibes as well that we see.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah. I will say, just to like ratchet up the tension, she is going into a toy store or she's going into a, like a big box store, specifically looking for the toy of the year. So it's, it's not going to end well for her no matter what because she's headed into a very high tension situation.

Um, you two have kids, is the toy of the year still like a thing?

Yeah, there's a, there are toys that are the most popular that if you, if you google like most popular toy for 10-year-old or whatever, you will, you'll get a list. Like Yeah, there's definitely a thing. Yeah.

And like, is it like hard to find, like, like is it impossible to get though?

I think this, I don't know about you, Ellen, but I have a feeling that with the advent of online shopping and especial, especially like international online shopping, it's not as hard because if you, if you can't find it in your local store, you can like order it from that store or order it from another store.

Yeah. I mean obviously this is only five years ago. Like back then they did have quite a lot of online shopping stuff set up already. But even since Covid, it's become much easier to get things online. But yeah, I, I don't think I've ever tried to get the most popular thing, so I don't know. I don't know.

It's very much... what's that? What's that movie? Is it Jingle All the Way? Is that the movie I'm thinking of, which is like Arnold Schwartzenegger trying to get the toy, or,

oh, maybe. It's been a long time since I saw that.

See, this scene just reminded me of, um, the, like the episode of The Office where Dwight buys up all the like toy of the years and then sells them at like 200% profit.

Okay. Yes, I was correct. It's Jingle All the Way and if anybody is unsure what that movie is, it's Arnold Schwartzenegger and Sinbad and the summary is, um, Howard finds himself running all over town on Christmas Eve and competing with every parent to get his son a turbo man action figure.

That's the whole movie?

That's the whole movie. Every store is sold out and you must travel all over town and compete with other parents to try and find it

wild.

Yeah.

But yeah. But you two have never like had to fight parents over.

Oh no, I haven't got time for that shit. I'm just like, okay, I'm just gonna get whatever's there. I'm not, yeah,

because like I have dogs, I just buy them treats for Christmas and throw them outside, so it's fine.

No, I have never personally experienced going into a store and looking for like a dancing duck from my kid and having to fight five other parents for it.

Ne never pulled out the pepper spray?

God,

no.

Uh, would not work because it's illegal down here, but no.

All right. Where are we? Pepper spray, so

Yes, because yes. Our poor woman who is looking for, uh, the Dapper Duck, which looks like it's some kind of dancing stuffed animal. Uh, I'm guessing it's like this year's equivalent of Tickle Me Elmo. Yeah, and it is incredibly popular. There is one duck left on the shelf. And as she lunges for it, a fight breaks out. And like literally one man rips the duck from her hands saying to her, my kid is better than yours, as he celebrates getting the last one.

Yeah. And they're all groaning on the floor. And then she's like, "Stay away from me. Back off. What is wrong with you people? You people are animals!" she says, it's like, whoa. Okay.

And she's wielding pepper spray. Yeah. And clutching the, the, uh, the box, um, of the Dapper Duck in one hand. Somebody tries to come and calm her down, tells her to like, "Hold it right there. Um, get your hands up when I can see them. I'm gonna need you to hand me the pepper spray." And as she turns around, we see that it's Santa Claus.

It is Santa.

I'm thinking Santa might be like it. It might be a cop moonlighting as Santa or maybe a security officer moonlighting

One of the stores security guards.

Yeah, because he seems to be very comfortable in this like hostage situation that she's got going with the Dapper Duck. Um, and it, it seems to be working, but he seems to be talking her down. But unfortunately, as she's about to hand him the pepper spray, his eyes kind of flick to the duck that she's holding and that just triggers her fight and flight even more. And so Santa gets a face full of pepper spray.

Yeah, while she screams, "My duck!"

But then we cut to outside the store where Athena is handcuffing her

and she's, I love this. One of the other LAPD's officers is, um, is carrying the Dapper Duck to like the squad car. And even as this woman is being handcuffed, she is thanking the officers for saving the duck for her and Athena just without like very emotionless goes "I'm, sorry, that, that's going into evidence. You're not getting that back."

Yeah. Um, so the 118 have also been called in to treat everyone who's been doused with pepper spray. Like everyone has like red blistery eyes. It's disgusting.

Santa seems to have gotten the most, the worst of it, or he is having the biggest reaction to it.

Um, because Buck and Bobby have him on one of their gurneys and of course there's a crowd of children gathered around looking because it's Santa, getting treated by firefighters. So really it's like a, like every child's dream.

I love this scene.

I love it so much.

Yeah. And the little kid's like, "Is Santa Claus gonna die?"

I just, I love that Buck, he is trying so hard to be helpful. But

He's trying so hard.

He thinks he thinks he is doing the right thing and he gets down on this kid's level and he's like, "oh, no, no, no, of course not. Don't you worry? That's not really Santa." The kids are like, "he's not real?" And Buck's like, "No, no, he's just pretend it's fine." Bobby, behind him, Bobby, who's actually had kids and has had this discussion, he is like "Buck, Buck, Buck," shaking his head like, "Ixnay on the antasay,

did these, these guys get named in the, in, in the actual dialogue at all though?

Um, Cody does because Cody's dad comes over and says, "Hey Cody, what's the matter?"

Okay. Okay.

And it's the same guy that was like, "My kid is better than yours!" So that's why I'm using their names because as per my rule...

Okay, well I was just checking names. I was just checking on your rule because you know, um, okay. Yeah.

But yeah, so this mum comes over and goes, "Did you just tell my kid that Santa's not real?" And Buck's like, "No, no. I was just explaining that this Santa isn't Santa," and like Santa's just rolling his eyes at this point the kids are all crying. Um, Cody's like sobbing 'cause Santa Claus isn't real and the parents all look at Buck and Buck's just like while grinning.

Please don't kill me.

He's so, he looks like really tiny when he does that smile though. So cute.

Buck is two apples tall this entire episode.

Yes he is. Yes.

Alright, all that before the title card.

Maybe we should have put a spoiler alert. Um, don't watch this episode around children, because spoiler alert Santa isn't Santa.

Well, all he said was,

It's just this Santa's not Santa

this Santa. Like I, I've, I've always told my kids that the, the Santa in the shopping center is not the real Santa because otherwise different shopping. We go to a different shopping center and there's another Santa there and I'm like, this is a different guy. Like, you know. Anyway.

Yeah, they're Santa's helpers. He reports back to Santa.

Right?

Santa can't be everywhere at once. He's busy. It always cracks me up in those movies that you watch where like Santa's actually real, but the parents are like, oh no, Santa's not real. Where do they think the presents come from? Yeah, like the dad's excuse because I'm sure the dad just thinks that the mom's buying the presents, but like where do, where do they think that the presents come from?

Yeah, that's a valid point. Because Anyway, you are not supposed to ask questions like that about Christmas movies.

No Christmas movies, you definitely just switch your brain off and enjoy the prettiness.

That's true.

Like the twinkly lights

and the happy times usually.

Yes. Um,

and the small town romances

or the machine guns, depending on your Christmas movie of choice.

Oh, yeah. Falling off of towers. Yes. Speaking of falling, no, that's got nothing to do with it. Um, at, at, at the Bathena residence, which is what we are calling it now, um, yeah, Michael has decided that because Athena hasn't put the tree up yet, um, he and the kids are going to put the tree up for her, even though it's usually her thing. Okay, man, You don't live there anymore.

Yeah, but he doesn't live there anymore. But he's going through her closets and he's pulling out Christmas trees and Christmas decorations, like, yeah.

Well, to be fair, he probably knows what's in those closets.

It doesn't matter. It's not his house anymore. He was given that key in order.

No, because he was, he was hiding, he was hiding in the closet for so long.

He knows what's right. Yeah. Okay.

Well, okay. Okay. Um, yeah, he, he's given that key to facilitate the children coming backwards and forwards,

um, and put up Christmas trees. Apparently it's fine.

Oh God no.

Um, but yeah, May does make a point. She's like, "Should we even be doing this without them? 'cause it is kind of mom's thing."

Yeah. I mean, in a way I'd be okay with someone and come, like, as we discussed during the movie, yes, I'd be fine if someone came into my house and set up the, the everything for me. But yeah, at the same time it's like, oh, that's my thing. I like to do that.

Well, see that's, yeah, that's that. I think that would be the point that the part of the, the holiday junkie was you don't have the time or the sort of inclination to do it, so therefore you outsource it. But I don't think Athena is the kind of person that would outsource it.

Yeah.

Um. We are reminded as to why, um, Athena is probably delayed putting up the Christmas tree, um, because Harry, in that wonderful way of children, um, asks whether he, whether Michael really thinks a Christmas tree is gonna make Bobby forget that he might have cancer. Yeah. Yeah. Lovely. I love Harry. He's, he's just so blunt without like, intentionally being blunt.

He just says it like it is, like all kids do.

That's it.

Yeah. Well, May says it's "This year has been a lot," like she doesn't think anyone's really feeling the Christmas spirit and Michael just says that they're going to spread some holiday magic.

Yeah. It's Bobby's first Christmas with his new family and they're gonna do everything they can to make it special for him.

So apparently you have to eat popcorn while you are putting up a Christmas tree?

No, they string it. Popcorn garlands. It's usually popcorn and dried cranberries.

Right. Gotcha. Actually, that sounds delicious. I'm hungry. I just ate dinner, um, anyway, they, so he starts pulling decorations out of the box and then he finds one that's a little, it kind of looks a bit like a homemade thing, right? Like a kid maybe made it.

Yeah. I'm guessing. I'm guessing. Must a ma must have made it at school. So it's a, a family portrait of much, much younger version of the Grant family and it's got like candy canes glued to it into like a little shape of a Christmas house frame.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then Michael looks at, looks pretty sad while he is looking at it. And then he kind of goes he basically, he puts the, the thing in his pocket.

Well, the front door opens, which means Athena and Bobby have come home. So he kind of, he turns away, puts his back to them coming in because he's started crying and he sort of takes, he's still got the decoration in his hand as he turns away. Um, and Athena rather than castigating her ex-husband for breaking into her house, raid her closets and setting up a Christmas tree, seems actually pretty happy to see him. Key possibly. That's just be he's key. He didn't break in. All right.

Yeah. She does say he's not fully in the clear yet. But it's the last test for now, so, yeah.

And so at this point, Michael kind of shoves the decoration that's still in his hand, in his pocket, rearranges his face, and into something that's somewhat approaching happy and turns back to the group.

Yeah. And says he's gotta leave.

Yeah.

He's spoken. God, that's great news. Um, bye.

He's half set up a tree. He's pulled out all the boxes. He's dumped half the decorations on the floor and now he's leaving.

Yeah. Literally just walks out.

Yeah.

But he's obviously been badly affected by this, seeing this decoration, and he's like, uh, I'm gonna lose it in like 30 seconds. I need to get out of here. Yeah. So, and then, um, as before he does that, actually he, Athena goes over to the tree and she like rubs her hands on it so she can smell it. And I had, did not even consider that it was actually a real tree until she did that. I was like, just 'cause we always have plastic trees here.

Oh, I forgot that. Yeah.

So you don't have a, you don't have a Christmas tree farm?

Queensland don't do Christmas tree.

We don't, yeah, I don't think they grow here very well. So our the pine plantations that we have up here are quite different. Like,

yeah. So one of my best friends is from Cairns and she has always dreamed about owning a Christmas tree farm. Um, like she actually owns a Christmas business. It's just very into Christmas.

Um, oh my God. So she's like a, a walking, talking Hallmark romance.

Yeah, literally. Um, like when I, when we watched The Holiday Junkie, I like sent her the link and I was like, you need to watch this. 'cause this is like, this is your dream career.

This is you.

Um, anyway, she went to a Christmas tree farm last Christmas for the first time and I was like, how have you never been to a Christmas tree farm? Like, we're in our thirties. And she's like, we don't have them in Queensland.

Nope.

That's fascinating.

And yeah, I had no idea. There are two near where I used to work.

Oh, okay.

Like, literally they're just like around the corner from each other. There's also like three down where I live now,

I think we have a dedicated Christmas tree farm, but we also have like community groups, like the Scouts that will go out and harvest pine trees and just sell them on the, like on the street corner.

Oh wow.

Yeah. Our, um, the CFA near where I used to live, um, sold them every year.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so does, so do ours. Yeah. So yeah, we, there are a plethora of real tree options down here.

So many real trees and like different types of trees.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Okay. I, we might be able to get them up here nowadays, but in the past when we've had one by the time it was in January and we were getting rid of it, it was very droopy. It didn't like being inside inside.

Oh yeah. They all dry out very quickly.

Yeah. And all the needles were just falling up, falling off.

Like we are cutting trees off in the middle of summer and expecting them to last.

Yeah.

Anyway, we do have like a, a plastic tree that we use every year. So, you know, it's reusable, I guess. Um,

possibly better for the environment than constantly cutting down trees.

But then it was like a glimpse into like someone else's scent memory because she went over to the tree and she like rubbed her hands on it and then she inhaled it and I'm like, oh, that must smell so good.

Yeah. The real ones smell good.

Yes. They do. Do we think Eddie has a real tree?

Did Eddie even have a tree? I didn't even notice.

Maybe.

They did last year, didn't they? It was a huge one.

They had a massive tree out the front yard last year. I'm pretty sure there was a tree set up somewhere in that living room, but I was honestly too focused on Buck to notice, so

yeah, absolutely. So we're at the Diaz's house like the Diaz residence and Eddie and Hen are catching up over coffee and Eddie's lamenting to Hen because he let Christopher know that he has to work on Christmas and Chris just went straight to his room and wouldn't speak to him for the rest of the night. And they like, it's hard because last year was when Shannon came back because Christopher wish wished for Shannon like his mom back, and Eddie made it happen. And this year that can't happen.

I also wonder if this might be the first Christmas that Eddie has had to work since he came back from working.

I'm assuming so. Yeah.

Like he might have, he's come back from serving and has made it a priority or just It has worked out that he is always been with Christopher at Christmas time and this is the first one where he is had a job where he can't get out of working on Christmas day.

Yeah. So Christopher's not gonna have either of his parents

and also like the first anniversary of Shannon's death and the fact that he wished for her to come back at Christmas.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's a doozy.

Yeah, it's awful. Yeah. So, um, so yeah, so Hen's like, "Is that why you invited us all here? Trying to cram in as much Christmas cheer before now and then?" and Eddie's like, "Oh, well I thought it'd be nice to bring the boys together for a play date." And so it pans around to the living room where you see Chris and Denny playing, like they're building gingerbread men and Hen goes, "All three of them," because Buck's also there.

Yeah. It's adorable

playing with the kids.

So sweet.

So they've got all three kids there. Yes. And um, Buck.

Buck is, Buck is making the royal icing for them to, um, to build their gingerbread houses with

Yeah. Which he calls cement, because obviously they're

Yeah, I was, I was really confused for a minute. Like, he, he said, I, "Who needs more cement?" And I'm like, what are they making, like Christmas decorations or something? And they're like, okay, okay. They've got gingerbread.

Mum won a hamper in a raffle recently and it had like one of those DIY gingerbread house kits in it. Yeah. And I'm like, it's February, but Sure. But, um, now I feel like, um, 'cause we're both off to off work tomorrow, I'll be like, we have to make the gingerbread house. And she'll be like, what? Why, what are you doing? It's March.

At least wait until July. Then you can have Christmas in July.

I

love gingerbread. It's my favorite.

I love gingerbread. I've got a gingerbread room spray. I love it so much. But yeah, so they're building gingerbread houses. Um, super cute. But then Chris goes, "Hey Buck, can I spend Christmas with you?"

Oh, Chris

and Buck's heart just breaks. Like, he like, his smile vanishes and he like glances at Eddie and he's like, "I'm, I'm sorry buddy. I've gotta work on Christmas with your dad."

Poor

Chris. And Chris just slouches back and goes, "Stupid work."

And it, it's, it's so interesting that the entire time that he is talking to Christopher, his eyes are on Eddie.

Oh yeah, glued to Eddie.

he's like checking, like making sure that what he's saying Chris is fine or he's waiting for Eddie to, to jump in and say something.

Um, or just like being sympathetic that like Eddie's had to deal with this. 'cause I'm sure Eddie's also like ranted at Buck. Like Yeah, they probably FaceTimed and was just like, yeah, he's, he won't speak to me. But yeah, also Buck's probably worried that he just told Christopher that Santa's not real, too Hen assures Eddie that, um, that Chris will forget he's even mad by New Year's.

Yeah. "It's been a rough year for everyone," Hen says. She'll, she's looking forward to putting this year behind me and Buck says, "I wouldn't be surprised if there's one more smack in the face to come." And I'm like, dude, it's nine, it's 2019. Like, you have no idea what it's about to come around the corner for you. You wanna put this year behind you? Just wait.

None of us had any idea.

It's not even that I'm just like, damn,Buck. You like, that's the equivalent of saying the Q word on shift.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Abs in the context of this episode. Yes. That is a shitty thing to say,

but in the, in the grinder scheme of things like, yeah, you have no idea. Um, then we get, we get the, the smack in the face. The smack in the face comes in the form of a check made out to Maddie for $486,329.

Yeah. Yeah. Just a small amount. You know how it is

just a tiny amount, but it, it is apparently Maddie's share of the marital assets. Um, Doug's estate has obviously, um, been settled and that is what Maddie is entitled to.

Yeah. And she wasn't expecting it. She says "even, even now, he can't let me have any peace. It feels like blood money."

yeah. So Maddie thought she wasn't entitled to anything legally. But her lawyer says that the Slayer statute only applies to murder. Yeah. And I'm sure we're about to get a Bex's fun facts.

So the Slayer statute is, um,

the Slayer statute. What a great name.

I,

it sounds like something that should be on Buffy,

I thought, yeah. Yeah. I thought it was like a very Buffy-esque but it basically, in, in a nutshell, it basically means that you can't kill somebody to get their inheritance.

Okay. Makes sense.

So if you are a beneficiary to somebody's estate, you can't kill them in order to claim your benefits under the estate because of court.

That's probably a good idea. Yeah.

The court will assume that you killed them in order to inherit, so they're not going to reward that kind of behavior. Um, but Maddie's lawyer is..., well actually Chim who's apparently got a law degree as well as a medical degree in every other thing that he's got, um, reminds me,

well, he had, he had to look up a lot while making the Snuggie, okay.

He reminds Maddie that it was self-defense. So she was not convicted of murder. I probably wasn't even charged with anything. Um, and tells her that that money is the least that Doug owed her. Funnily enough, apparently Tim Minear had on an entire storyline with what Maddie was gonna do with this money.

Oh, oh my God. I thought you were gonna say that Tim Minear committed murder or something. And I was like, what?

That's an interesting segue. But no, um, no, he apparently he had, there wasn't a storyline about Maddie and what she was gonna do with this money, and they shot scenes relating to Maddie deciding what to do with this money. Um, it just never made it into the episode. I don't think it even, I think he was going to put it in later on in the season and just never got in there. 'cause I have no recollection no what she does with that money.

We'll have to keep it in mind. It's like, um, when we were trying to work out if Buck had a million, like millions of dollars. Yes. We'll have to keep it in mind. And every time Maddie like buys a coffee, we're like, oh, how many shots of hazelnut did you put in that? Or peppermint rather?

Oh yeah.

Oh, gross, no.

No, it's really nice. Look, I had a peppermint, it's, I went to Starbucks. Um, like after we watched the movie, I went there randomly because my daughter is obsessed with Starbucks because she keeps seeing it on YouTube and she's like, can we get a Starbucks? I'm like, but it's just not...

it's bad.

that nice. It's expensive and it's not great. Anyway, we went to there and I got a peppermint mocha and it was delicious. It was real. It was very sweet, but it was, um,

Well, chocolate and mint is good, so yeah.

Yeah.

No, it's not.

All right, let's agree to to, to disagree and, um, all

alright. Ignore the Grinch over there

and ignore the... because she's wrong and, and also the lawyer says, uh, the lawyer says that she can donate it or burn it and whatever she wants to do it with it, but it's her, it's her money so she can decide to it.

Yeah. According the state of Pennsylvania, the money's hers.

So she takes, it leaves LA and opens a holiday, holiday decorating consulting business.

Yeah.

Yep, yep. Okay.

Um, check out our Holiday Junkie episode. If you

to see what Maddie did with that money. She changed her name, resurrected Doug.

Re married Doug. Wait a minute. Yeah.

Bought some, bought some like really chunky red glasses.

Hung out in Buck's loft for a bit.

Oh yeah. Anyway, we, speaking of leaving LA we're going to the airport.

We are going to the airport. Um,

get a nice establishing shot of the LAX sign at the front of the airport.

Um, we've got a family who has decided to head to Hawaii for a destination Christmas. Um, I, I was laughing because the, is it the mom that's just like, "oh, it's not gonna feel Christmasy. Yes. Because it's gonna be 90 degrees."

Yes.

Yeah. The dad's like, "It's a five degree difference from LA."

Yeah, exactly. That argument does not hold weight.

Welcome to warm Christmases.

Yeah,

they're great. Yeah. Honestly, they're amazing.

But yeah, so they, um, it's parents and two, is it two kids?

Uh, yes,

I think so. Yeah.

I think it's, so, it's like traditional, like it's the, it's the nuclear family.

Yeah.

Like the mom, dad and the boy girl. Yeah.

2.5 kids. Yeah. Yeah. Um. And the 0.5 at the, in this case, is a bag of golf clubs.

Yeah,

exactly. The dad is obsessed with these golf clubs. Um, they go to check in and they're checking in with a person like, oh my God. You remember? When was the last time you checked in with a person at the airport? Um, yeah, I think the last time I did that it was because I was running late and they were like closing my flight and I had to go through the, the person to make sure that I got on board on time.

You sometimes do for international flights, but, um, well, I do anyway in Brisbane, but, um, domestic? No, just there's a machine.

The Melbourne airport is so big compared to like most other airports. Like I, I'm assuming Sydney's also pretty big. I just haven't been to the Sydney airport. Yeah. But yeah, everything's automated now. Like you just scan a thing, put it on the conveyor belt and it just does everything.

Yeah. Yeah. I was amazed. I flew Qantas out of Melbourne. And even bag drop was automated.

Yeah.

Like I didn't have to speak to a person the entire time I was in that airport.

Yeah. And then, 'cause the last flight I went to, uh, went was the Gold Coast for work. And yeah, like we leave Melbourne, which is this highly sophisticated airport, and we get to the Gold Coast, which is like tiny.

Yeah. The Gold Coast airport's really tiny. Yeah.

Yeah. It's so cute and touristy. And there's just palm trees and there's like, they don't have anything automated. And so going back again, we had to like, give everything to the people there and we're just like, oh, like we can't just, like, we can't just scan the thing and put our luggage down. Um, and like all the security checks were so slow, but there's only like, not that many people at the airport, so it doesn't matter.

Now that I think about it, when I was on my way back from the US and I was actually checking into my flight home in LA like LAX, I had to check in with a person. My, like my Qantas flight wasn't one of the ones that was available at the automatic check-in system.

Interesting.

So I had to actually line up and see somebody.

I'm hoping you did not try to carry on a bag of golf clubs.

I did not.

As your carry on.

No. I was going for a convention, not to play golf.

Hey Jensen, can you sign my golf clubs that I my to bring all the way?

Oh my God. He would love that if you showed up.

He would. He would love that

with a set of golf clubs.

He actually would, but I feel like security wouldn't love it.

Oh, no, no. Cliff would be giving you a side eye as serious side eye.

You walk into the creation con and Cliff just ta like spear tackles you.

Uh, people do turn up with some very weird props, though.

If half of, if half of Misha's stories can be believed, then yes.

Yeah. I'm thinking of like the, uh, the taxidermy squirrel.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of too. Yeah. Yeah.

The person who's collecting the bag says, "you can't, you're gonna, you need to check in your golf clubs." And he's like, "Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm, I'm gonna carry these on." And she's like, "No. Like, give me the golf clubs."

Sir, you cannot carry...

yeah. It's a TSA policy like Jesus Christ. Have you never flown before?

I'm pretty sure even in like the heyday of aviation, like in the Pan Am days where, you know, Stuart, you're allowed to smoke on board. I'm pretty sure you were still not allowed to carry golf clubs on board.

Yeah. There isn't anywhere for them to go.

Exactly.

Maybe overhead.

Maybe he bought an extra seat for them.

That wouldn't even surprise me with this guy.

Anyway, he's like, "Please be gentle with them." And she just like grabs 'em and chucks 'em on the conveyor. Yeah. She's like, yeah, sure.

Compared, compared to the actual baggage handlers down the tarmac, she was gentle with them.

She was very gentle.

Baggage handlers not so gentle.

We see the, the clubs go through the conveyor belt, which leads to outside on the tarmac where the baggage handlers are loading all of the luggage, the check luggage on two little carts to then take them over to a plane for loading. Um, and we have two baggage handlers that we're going to follow. One of them appears to be working on, we just need to get this shit onto the airplane as fast as possible. Perhaps he's working on commission.

I feel like we need to call these two Tortoise and Hare

because one of them is really fast and one of them is really slow.

Yep. So yeah, as Hare grabs the bag from Tortoise's hands and tosses it into the cart, you hear, um, a generic glass breaking, um, sound clip,

which would not happen in reality, but just to like really reiterate that that present was fragile and something has broken. Um,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah. Um, so the golf clubs of course, show up and Tortoise grabs them and is like, "Oh, well there's no room left. We'll wait for another cart." And Hare's like, "No, no. Give me those," and grabs them and like tosses them or slams them down into the front of the cart, but hits the accelerator.

Yeah. So off goes the cart.

Yeah,

all the time. 'cause apparently the engine was on and or in slamming down the clubs on the accelerator, he has turned the key and turn the engine on. I dunno, it's, it's, this entire scene is so stupid and so far from reality.

And we get some lovely Nutcracker Christmas music going, some ballet as the cart goes around and around in circles.

Yes. We get baggage cart carts, baggage cart, ballet.

Yeah. Um, Benny Hill would've also worked for the scene. Yes.

Yes. But that's not Christmasy.

Um, because yeah, the, the carts like going around in circles and people are trying to catch it. One of the air marshals who's trying to direct a plane gets taken out. Uh, luggage is getting flown, like flung around, um, onto the tarmac and the passengers in the gate lounge waiting for their flight, start watching. And of course, the dad sees that his golf clubs are involved and is panicking.

He's like freaking out.

Yeah.

So Tortoise goes, fuck this shit. I'm gonna fix this. Jumps into another golf cart, which, and then has to, you know, turn the key and crank the engine to get it starting. He can't just slam his foot on the accelerator and have it take off. Um, and he goes full dodgem cars and just drives straight for the pirouetting baggage cart and slams into it, knocking it onto its side.

Yeah. So I'm pretty sure that Tortoise was watching the news that day that the kid in the, was it the BMW, um, or the

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The fancy car.

The fancy car. Oh, the old car. Um, yep. Pretty sure he watched when that was outta control and it crashed into the, the firetruck, because he does pretty much the same maneuver

pretty much. But Phil Collins does not play. We've still, we've still got Tchaikovsky going.

Yeah. Um, anyway,

so, but he, he seems pretty pleased with himself because he jumps free from the cart, um, and is sort of accepting his accolades. This is so stupid because it never happens. It would absolutely never happen. But plane would not be taxiing with its engines going at this point. Yes. Because it's so fucking close to the, uh, gate lounge.

It's like right next to the terminal.

Yes.

Right next to it.

It's right next to it. It's engines would be off. Oh my God.

So basically this plane sneaks up on him.

Not to mention, there's people all over the tarmac. Yes. So like, yeah. Yeah.

So like air traffic control would not have directed the plane to come in. When planes push back, the little cart pushes it back. They don't actually turn their engines on until they're out on like the runway part and they're under their own power. Um, but regardless, LAX is like the wild west of airports apparently. So a plane is either coming in or leaving out with its turbines going and, um, tortoise gets, um.

Including the golf clubs

gets sucked into the turbine, dragging Tortoise with them. Yeah. And then it just cuts to black.

And then we have a 9-1-1 call. Yes.

And it was, it was like a bit of a shock to see it the first time, because I wasn't thinking at the time that this would never have happened, but I was just enjoying like the ballet music and the like, yeah.

Oh, the ballet music is pretty,

you know, this is so funny. Oh, this is funny. Oh, you, he managed to stop the cart. Yay. And then all of a sudden he just get sucked into the engine. And I was like, oh, that's not good.

Oh. Uh, we get the 9-1-1 call as in, um, we get the, the blip and like the "9-1-1, what's your emergency?"

But no one speaks?

But then it cuts to commercial before anyone can. Yeah.

They, they can't even. They can't even get a weird, um, explanation for this one.

They're just like,

"I don't know what this plane was doing, but it was there!" Anyway the 118 are there. The aircraft was taxiing, the fans were spinning,

which wouldn't have been... Oh my god..

The guy's explaining what happened. So Bobby just looks at it and goes, "Buck, Eddie, get me everything."

Yep.

So they, yep, they run off to get everything.

And we can see that, um, the, like they've, they've turned the engine off so the propellers are no longer spinning and there's debris and stuff wedged in the propeller and a pair of legs just sort of hanging out.

Yeah. So Bobby um, tells the, like, airport officer to clear the tarmac and the window because there are still a lot of passengers like looking down and Bobby's clearly expecting this to not be great.

It's, there's gonna be bits of this guy everywhere.

Yeah. But then,

yeah, I, I'm pretty sure that Bobby is expecting that this is like body retrieval, not a rescue operation.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, but, but then the baggage, like Tortoise's legs move

and they've got a live one

and Bobby says they've gotta take this thing apart now. So they just get a bunch of tools from,

they literally just use drills.

They just, yeah.

This episode's, this episode is sponsored by Milwaukee because they're using Milwaukee drills.

Nice. Um, but yeah, like after telling them to get everything, like, so you're thinking like jaws of life No, they're just using hand drills.

Yeah, hand drills. And they're just like,

apparently the bolts are easily...

Unscrewing, screw the... the, that's what I was wondering. Can you, would you be able to use like the regular hand, regular drill, handheld drill to unscrew the bolts of an airplane?

Just use it like Phillip's head screwdriver.

Really that makes me very worried about the, I mean, hopefully, I mean, if it's a Boeing, I could understand if things are just falling off. But, um, it makes me worried about like the structural integrity if a Milwaukee, cordless hand drill can like unscrew the propellers.

So reminds me, I keep seeing tiktoks of that guy who's like the air airline aircraft engineer or whatever, and he, people ask him if this is safe, and he is like, oh yeah, this is just a normal thing that happens, just like in Lord of the Rings, where blah, blah. And he goes off this tangent about explaining Lord of the Rings to,

I love him. He's hilarious.

I love him. So now every time I see something about airline safety, I just expect that guy to show up. And I'm really sad that he doesn't. But anyway. Um, but yeah, this guy is like, in one piece, he's fine.

Yeah, he's bleeding a little bit, but not much at all.

So rather than check him for like, you know, structural damage. They just yank him outta there. Like he, he could have like a broken neck or something, but eh, just pull him out. He'll be fine.

I mean, they pull him out fairly. Like, it's not like they put it like sit him up or anything.

I'm guessing that they can't do anything for him while he's in there. So they do need to get him out. I would've hoped that they at least put a C collar on him before they yanked him out.

You'd hope so, wouldn't you? But anyway,

um, and then Buck discovers why this guy is still in one piece, when he appears around from the back of the turbine with a very mangled set of golf clubs and reports that apparently they got sucked in first and they locked up the blades, which, you know, if I were the golf club manufacturer, I would be thrilled because look at how sturdy these golf clubs are. That they managed to stop.

So they just got bent. They didn't

A propeller. Yes. They didn't snap. They didn't break. They just,

bent a bit.

Still straight. I don't think you could possibly go out and, you know, hit a hit around with them. But you know, that's some good quality shit there.

Yeah.

Um, and while everybody on the tarmac is absolutely amazed and thankful for these golf clubs, um, dad up in the lounge has a very different reaction.

The people up, the rest of the people up there are cheering because they see the guy being pulled out of there and they're all like, yay, he's okay. And yeah, the dad just faints away. He's down

and we go back to the tarmac and Bobby is still like thrilled and amused. The idea that these golf clubs have saved this guy's life. Um, but when Buck turns back to look at him, Bobby has a nosebleed and Bobby and Buck's face just drops as he points out to his captain that he's got a nosebleed. Yeah, because this could be something quite serious.

Yeah. So we go back to the station house where Bobby's trying to reassure Buck that it could have been allergies, it could have been the Santa Ana's, it could have been how cold it was out there, and Buck's just grilling him. "Was this your first nose bleed? Have your gums been bleeding? Do you have a rash? A rash anywhere I can't see?"

So Buck's been googling.

"Are you diagnosing me?"

I mean, A, Bobby, you do all the time,

that's their superpower, yeah.

But also, like we saw in the last episode, Athena sort of Googling radiation poisoning. So apparently Buck is doing exactly the same thing.

So after like, 'cause obviously we've seen this entire episode. Do you reckon Buck and Athena have been messaging each other since the tunnel?

Yes. 100%.

Like, okay, Athena, you take the home shift, I'll take the station house and we'll keep an eye on him.

Aw.

But yeah, Buck's like, "I haven't noticed any shortness of breath or bruising, but you could be hiding symptoms like a headache, dizziness, irregular heart, ba heart rate. Are you?" but Bobby assures buck that he's not hiding symptoms. Um, he's not hiding symptoms because he is not having any symptoms of whatever Buck thinks that he has.

I, I think that this next exchange is really cute.

The best

Buck is worried that. A prolonged exposure to radiation can cause aplastic anemia. And did Bobby know that aplastic anemia is what killed Marie Curie? And Bobby looks at him and says like, "Number one, no, I did not know that. And number two did not know. I did not know that you knew who Madam Curie was," and Buck's like, "Well, I had to look her up, but she was a really smart lady and she died."

"And she still died and she still died to too much, from too much exposure to radiation." But she was a really smart lady. Two apples tall.

He's so, he's so baby girl in this episode.

Oh, I love him so much.

Gender neutral, of course,

obviously.

Um, but Buck's education aside. Um, Bobby is more concerned with the real problem, which is. They have a tie for Christmas dinner. 'cause while Buck has been interrogating him, they've been sitting in the back of one of the engines and Bobby has been counting little slips of paper. So apparently everyone in the 118 voted for what they were gonna do for Christmas dinner this year.

Yeah, poor buck wanted a traditional Christmas, but apparently nobody else did.

And he was the only one.

The falafel place got more votes than Turkey. So Bobby says, you know what? I'm just not up for cooking Christmas this year. I'm gonna switch my vote to Chinese so that we have a majority. We're having Chinese for Christmas,

and Buck immediately goes, "Fatigue. Also a symptom. Come here," and puts the back of his hand on Bobby's foot to check his temperature.

Like keep in mind, this is his boss. Yeah, he is. I just, I couldn't,

This is the guy he tried to sue like three weeks ago.

Yeah. Um, Bobby's got that little smirky face on that means that he's actually really touched by all of this, but it's "seriously, I'm fine. Like, stop it." But there's nothing to worry about. He says, "My, my grandmother always used to say, don't go borrowing trouble." But, um, buck explains that he knows that he does dumb things sometimes and drives him crazy. "But you are an important person in my life, Bobby." Oh, so sweet.

Yeah.

But yeah, he did just try and sue him like I, yeah. He drives him crazy for actual, legitimate reasons. All right. It's back to therapy.

Back to Frank's office.

Maddie is there again.

Yeah, I don't know if Hen and Eddie are still going, but Maddie is definitely still going. I guess she probably, she's been re-triggered with the appearance of this, um, of this check. And also Christmas was also a really, um, difficult time for her.

Well, she was the one at the end of the last episode who was like, okay, I'm ready to actually talk now.

Yeah.

So here she is, actually talking.

She says that she, that most of her adult life, Doug was there. And now that he's gone, she doesn't really know how to, how to move on from that. And, you know, Frank says that you still refer to him like he's really here, but he's gone. And Maddie realizes that it, she's the one who's holding onto, you know, she needs to let him go, basically. So Frank convinces her to go back to Big Bear.

To where Doug died. Yeah. And Maddie's like, "You want me to go to Big Bear? That's like a five day trip." Yeah. Um, Frank's confused. 'cause normal people it only takes like two hours. But you know,

the funny thing is that later it actually does take them a while to get there, but he says, yeah

and I think I made a note. Go. Wait. It wasn't just Doug's driving. It really does take that long.

It's take. Yeah, it's the holiday traffic.

It's just like even Buck, just like why is it taking you guys so long? It takes much few minutes to get to Big Bear. Yeah. But every second weekend just to hang out. Um, anyway, yeah. So, um, Frank wants her to go back to where Doug hurt her the most and talk to him out loud and let him go,

which sounds absolutely terrifying.

Yeah, no thanks but sure you are the therapist, you are the TV therapist, Frank.

So while Maddie is contemplating that, um, we're going to go back to the Bathena household where it is I'm guessing later that night, um, Athena is asleep and suddenly the blankets get pulled off her. There's a little bit of a tug of war with the blankets. She pulls them back on, they get pulled back off, and she very sleepily mutters to, uh, her bedfellow to stop being greedy.

Yes. And she's like suddenly wide awake. She's like,

so not only is he letting himself into the house to cook dinner and to raid her closets and set up Christmas trees, now he's invited himself over for sleepovers.

Yeah. Good one, Michael.

So when Bobby comes home from the shift that he really was on, um, he finds his wife asleep on the couch, and he's a little bit confused. He's like, "Why are you sleeping out here?" And she says, "My ex-husband snores." and Bobby's like, "I'm, I'm sure he does, but why are you out here?" She's like, "yeah, 'cause Michael's in bed."

Yep.

He's even more confused. And Athena is not helping him because it's like, "Why is Michael in the bed?" And Athena's like, "Oh, I didn't wanna ask him."

Athena's like, I'm not dealing with this shit. I'm just going back to bed.

And then Michael comes out and he looks so sheepish.

He's like, so confused.

He's like, "Hi?".

So embarrassed. But Michael's just like, "hi." And Athena's, "Good morning." And Bobby just goes, "Hi Michael."

He is like, "This is awkward."

It's like, yeah. You think?

Um, Bob is actually like really remarkably okay with this?

Yeah. He doesn't seem too bothered. He is just confused mostly, I think. Yeah. But Michael doesn't even remember coming there last night and he's, he just says he is been having trouble sleeping. He hasn't been drinking or anything, but apparently one of the side effects of his sleeping pills is um, could be sleepwalking. But he drove over here.

Yeah. Like he has his keys

and Bobby explains about parasomnia and apparently people do all sorts of things while they're sleeping and which is totally true. Like you can, you know, do go about your daily routine while being completely asleep. That is, that is something that happens to people. But, um,

I do like that in the list of things that people have been known to do while still fully asleep. He's got, they've often had sex and then looks backwards and forwards, and he goes, "That not that, that, not that, that is what I'm saying happened here." And Athena just goes, "Well, I, I think I would've noticed."

I'm sure I've read a fic about that. Anyway, um, Michael's like, "I'm mortified." And, um, Bobby's like, "You need to tell your doctor about this because it could end up being dangerous." And then Michael just gets out his keys and just start, removes his house key and puts it on the table. And, he says, "I'm, I want to make sure that I don't walk into your house or your bedroom again in the middle of the night."

And this is, this is sad. Athena says to him that, "Michael, this is your house too." And he just looks at her and says, "No, it's not," apologizes profusely drops the key and runs.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's finally, finally realized that maybe it's time to let go.

I mean, to be fair, he had the key for the kids. So that made sense.

Yes. But they're also old enough that like May is old enough. She could have had her own key. Like I know that, um, like my ex has a key to my house, but my eldest also has a key. So if I really wanted to, I could tell him to tell like my ex to give back the key, but he uses it to come over and get the kids shit when I'm not home.

Yeah. Right.

But those, like May and Harry are old enough and seem to be, uh, able to move around enough that they could just have keys and, and be okay.

Like my best friend had a key to my house just so she could come get the dogs whenever she wanted, but that's 'cause we co-own one of, or both of them technically. So,

yeah. So yeah. So while, while you're having your, while your ex having keys to your place is useful, I don't necessarily think that it's necessary for Michael to have one in this instance anymore.

Yeah, well he sure, sure thinks that he shouldn't have it. So, um, yeah, puts the key down and runs out again.

So then I think we flash forward, um, a couple of days, or at least a day or so because Buck is at the 118 clearly on duty, but he's on the same duty schedule as Bobby. And Bobby has just come home from shift in the last scene.

Oh yeah, it must be the next, the next shift.

so it's either at least 24 hours or a couple of days later, Buck is on the phone with Maddie. Although interestingly he says, so are you sure you don't mind calling Athena? Which makes me question whether, you know, like 30 seconds earlier we were saying, do you think Buck and Athena have been like Mother Henning it over Bobby on a group chat? Um, I don't think so. Based on that line. I think that would,

no, well, I think Buck would've, but Athena, because he's on shift, he doesn't want Bobby to know that he's calling Athena.

Maybe I have a feeling that he's still terrified of her.

Oh yeah, absolutely. The first season. Who isn't?

They're never, uh, even after, you know, going to Big Bear together, I have a feeling that he's still like afraid of her. Um, speaking of going to Big Bear, um, Maddie's on a road trip with Frank.

With

Frank. Yep. And once again, she is not driving.

Oh yeah. That must be bringing back some memories.

Frank is driving her to Big Bear. I would've thought that it would've been more helpful for her to physically drive herself there. But maybe Frank is not a passenger princess. He's one of those guys that just, he has to be in control of the vehicle.

Well, she had important phone calls to make too, but Yeah. Buck's surprised that they're still in the car because, you know, Big Bear's usually two hours away. Um, but Maddie blames the holiday traffic in LA this time.

Yeah. It sounds like Buck, Buck wanted to be there, but he couldn't be there 'cause he was working. So

I don't think he, and as Maddie said, he couldn't do anything. This is something that she needs to do. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

So they, she and Frank finally get to Big Bear, which is, um, there is no snow at Big Bear despite it being December.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

I guess it's too early?

I know, I know. We had, we had a discussion about the, there's no season for Big Bear. I was just surprised they pull up in front of the cabin that, um, Doug had commandeered and Maddie wants to know, is she supposed to go up to the cabin and, and knock on the front door and go like, hi, can I come in and relieve my trauma?

Yeah. Did she like explain the whole thing to him? I guess she must have. 'cause otherwise how would he know that this is not the place

either they've talked it through or maybe he got police reports.

Yeah.

Read statements. It's for the drama.

Yeah. Well, Maddie does go along the walkway that we saw before, and we do get flashbacks to that other episode where she is running away from Doug and we hear his voice, you know, telling her she can't keep running, which is pretty horrifying. But she, she gets all the way to the, the forest, um, where she, where it all happened, I guess. And she, you know, starts talking to Doug and says, "I never wanted you to die, but I do forgive you." She has a little speech about,

yeah. Once again, um, Jennifer Love Hewitt is talking to ghosts.

Oh, she is,

but this time they're not talking back.

They're not talking back. There's no whispering happening.

It would be a very different episode if she gets out there and like shit starts moving and like bark starts flinging itself at her and

and Doug's ghost is there...

And Doug is, Doug's ghost is attacking her.

And then she has to set fire to something and salt, put salt on it.

Yeah. Grab some salt, grab some an iron. Um, yeah, like a fireplace. Poker. Poker. Yeah.

And the Impala rolls into, into view behind her.

But no, she tells him quite firmly that she's leaving him here and she's going to live because she will not be sorry for surviving.

Yeah.

Screw you Doug.

And off she goes.

So we had to commercial and when we come back we are in a, a random house. Um, and

oh my God, this scene made me cry.

And once again, we have a female character who is not named, I don't think any of the female characters in this episode are named. So she's just gonna be mom. Okay. Yeah, the kid is named. The kid is Leo. It's just gonna be Mom and Leo. And I would, I would love to challenge the 9-1-1 writers to actually name their female characters in the dialogue, please. Or do something that indicates what their name is. So now that I'm, I'm off my soapbox.

Yeah.

Which is now two pages long.

So he needs extra brownie points. Yes. Santa Points.

Um, but he ranked, he ranked them in order of importance so that she can prioritize. And when his mom says, "You mean so Santa can prioritize?" He's just like, "Come on. I know."

Yeah. There would've been no, no worries if Buck had been talking to Leo. Or if Leo,

none at all. Yeah.

When Santa got sprayed, Leo would've been going like, dude, are you okay? I know you're not Santa, are you okay?

Leo would've been like, he's not even the real Santa, he's pretend

he would've been lecturing the other kids.

But, uh, so while Leo is okay with his mother no longer pretending, um, that there is a Santa Claus, um, his mother tells him that she likes pretending because Christmas and all of the, the lights and music, the pretending, it just makes the world feel a little bit more magical. But while she's talking to Leo, she's like wincing and, and pulling faces and, and rubbing at her chest.

Yeah.

Um. And he turns to get her the glass of water. And in the background we see her stagger and fall over and drag the Christmas tree down with her. And so Leo calls 9-1-1

and it's Maddie who got back to work very quickly.

Yeah. Yeah. This must be the next day or something if she's gone back to work immediately.

Either that or like it's, you know, when you've sort of got peak hour traffic, but peak hour is only going in one direction, so maybe, oh yeah.

Getting back from Big Bear took 30 minutes.

Everyone's trying to get out of LA and no one's trying to get into LA so it was much quicker coming back in. So Leo reports that his mother fell down and she won't wake up. And when Maddie realizes that there is nobody else in the house with Leo, um, she talks him through doing CPR because while she has dispatched the 118, it would be. Helpful to his mother if she, if he were to start CPR and gets, keep CPR going until the paramedics get there.

Yeah. Poor Leo. He's absolutely terrified. He's only 10.

Only 10. He's only 10. He does a really good job following Maddie's instructions, and Maddie does a really good job of talking him through, um, what to do. And she counts with him over the phone and it's all going well until Leo, because he's doing the compressions correctly, he cracks a rib and that

it's actually the sternum.

It freaks him out.

Um, so yeah, so when you're doing CPR, you should actually crack the sternum if you're doing it correctly. So you'll hear a crack, and that means you have to just keep going.

Mm. But if you're 10 years old, your mother won't wake up and all of a sudden you're breaking parts of her body.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Then it would be terrifying.

Yeah.

And, and Maddie is like, "Yes, you, that just means that you're doing it right. You just need to keep going." And so he does keep going until the 118 show up and Bobby tells him that they've got it from there, pulls Leo away so that Chim and Hen can get in and assess,

but Yeah. But when, like, when Bobby tries to pull him away, he's like, "no, no. The 9-1-1 lady said, I have to keep doing this."

Yeah.

I'm like, oh, Leo.

Yeah. He's so scared. But he lets them do their thing and they, they shock her and they, which like

their thing includes Chimney just eyeballing her and going, oh yeah. It's definitely cardiac.

Yeah. A hundred percent cardiac.

Yeah.

You haven't even looked at her,

but like, after that, no one speaks to Leo. Like until they get

Oh yeah. They kick him outside.

Yeah. He, he's just sitting there. No one's told him what's happening and he's, they. He just says, when Hen comes out, I don't know why Hen's not in the ambulance going off with him, mom.

Yeah. That's so weird, isn't it? Because that, anyway, they, they load, they load the, the mother into the ambulance and we see Chim drive off. Yet Hen is still in the house. Yeah.

But Hen's not there. So I, I don't, yeah. Yeah.

And for some reason the police are there now too.

Are they? No. I thought it was just the child services person who

No, it was No, because it was, he even says the police officer won't let me go with my mom.

Oh, okay.

And Leo thinks that he's in trouble. It's heartbreaking.

Poor Leo,

we hear someone over the radio tell Bobby that child services is on the way.

Okay. And then he just, he's like, "Is it because I hurt her? Like I didn't mean to hurt her." And Hen's like, "No, no, of course you are not in trouble." Then she says, "You did everything right. I think you probably saved her life." Um, but yeah, he's just. He's still still terrified, but like a, the, the cop that shows up and comes to look after Leo.

No. So family services aren't there yet.

So I'm assuming that, um, having police respond would be sort of just like you get police, you get fired at the same time. Especially if there is an unaccompanied minor on the scene. Maddie would've dispatched LAPD. So LAPD are there, they are going to sit with Leo until Child Protective Services get there

and then she turns around to Hen and says, "Merry Christmas Wilson." And Hen just looks like she's not at all having a Merry Christmas.

Not a very Merry Christmas.

And she says, "Yeah. Merry Christmas."

Um, so, someone else who was not having a very Merry Christmas is Michael.

Oh God. This scene is like the perfect kind of. Representation of being overstimulated in a shopping center at Christmas.

Isn't it?

Yeah. Being overstimulated and with a migraine.

So does he, is he actually medically ill or is he just like neurodivergent?

Maybe. It's like, oh my God, there's music and people coming at me from every direction can't handle it.

That's what always terrifies me because I get migraines so often that I'm just like, if something actually was wrong with me, I'd have no idea. I'd just be like, oh, it's just a migraine, it's fine. It's just been lasting for seven months. You know how it is. Um, because I, like, before I got glass, realized I needed glasses. I literally had a migraine every day.

Oh my god.

For like,

oh, and the glasses fixed that?

Four months. Yeah. Um, it was because my eyes were uneven.

Oh.

So like one was long sighted, one was shortsighted, so they were constantly straining. And so the eye strain like caused migraines. Um. And yeah, I was just like, oh, it's just a part of my life. I just get really bad migraines and just have to take medication all the time. Uh, yeah. It turned out I needed glasses. Um, I seriously just thought I had chronic migraines. Wow. But yeah, now they're mostly hormonal, but, but

Well, that's, that's a nice easy fix though. Like as, yeah, as fixes go. Glasses are pretty easy to deal with.

Um, but yeah, now, like, if something actually was wrong, I'd just be like, oh, it's just a migraine. You know how it is. It's fine. I've just had it for seven months.

Yeah. So Michael's not, not enjoying, uh, things. He's walking through a, like a, a mall, a shopping mall. He's, everything's blurry. He can't really see what's going on except what's right in front of him. And his, his hearing is kind of distorting and the music is weird. And then he just, he miss, he doesn't walk through the doors. He walks through the, the window beside the doors, just smashes right through it.

No, no, no,

no?

What the fuck kind of glass are they making those windows off that you can just, I don't smash straight through them like that? No.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure they would need to be pretty tough.

He would have walked into it and bounced off.

Yeah.

No.

Well, for the drama, he looked right through the, for the drama.

He goes straight through it. Yes. Yeah. Um, and ends up in the hospital possibly because he has some pretty wicked contusions on his face from when he went face first through very thin, like sugar glass. Um, yeah. But also the fact that he walked through said glass and people are concerned. Um, apparently he called Athena to let her know that he was in the hospital or. Somebody called Athena to let her know. Um, yeah. But basically, but she shows up at the hospital.

She, she has spoken to him because he told her that he was gonna get an Uber home from the hospital and she went, fuck that. I'm going, I'm coming down there. And she told them she was her wife, hi his wife, to get in to see him.

Yeah. It's, it's interesting with these two that, you know, technically that they are, they are no longer married and she's actually somebody else's wife, but they do use the, the husband and wife card.

Yeah.

In case of emergency.

I guess they were together a long time.

Yeah. Athena is worried though because, yeah, it's, because this is just the latest incident in a long line of incidents. Um, and she is very confused as to why the doctors. Don't think that all of these incidences are incidences? No, just incidents.

Incidents.

Because it's one incident, two incidents. Yes. Yeah. There is. Yes. Um, but Michael is downplaying the entire thing and he says, I also think that they are all related to sleep deprivation. He's like, I'm so sleep deprived. I'm probably legally drunk right now. Ha ha ha. Isn't that funny?

But he does promise that after the holidays he'll get a full checkup

and then he pulls the, like the divorcee card. He's like, you know, "I'm not sleeping God, Athena. This is my first Christmas alone." Which it's not because there was last Christmas.

No, I think the difference is last year he had a boyfriend.

Did he still have the boyfriend at this point?

Yeah. 'cause the boyfriend and him didn't break up until like Bobby and Athena's wedding, I think. Just before,

no, he and the boyfriend broke up when Harry was setting fire to the front lawn with the, like the white trash kid from school. I don't care enough to look back and try and figure out where that is in the timeline though.

No, let's, let's just let, let that one be, but Athena assures him that he's not alone. "You have a family that loves you. I love you." And then Michael just breaks down and he's like, "I love you too. I love you so much." It's like, whoa, um, yeah, he doesn't want her to worry about him, but too late. She already is worrying.

She always come and get him.

It's, it's really sweet in like a slightly worrying way because he's acting like kind of weirdly.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Very weirdly. But we are going to head to the Wilson household for a little bit, um, where Karen is apparently using Christmas presents as insulation. She's, she's filled the attic with Christmas presents, and what really surprises me every time I watch this is that they are all wrapped. So it's not that she's buying shit and shoving it in the attic for later, it's, she's buying them, she's going, oh, that's a Christmas present.

Yeah.

Which, like, how are you gonna keep track of what you bought if it's all wrapped?

That's, that was my thinking too, especially later. I was like, how do you know what's in them?

I, I think I figure it out how they do that later, but at this point, yeah. How do you know that you've, but like, I've bought him three of the same thing. Yeah. Anyway, um, both she and Hen are very shocked at the, um, the pile of presents that hen has pulled out that Karen has pulled out of the attic.

Just, just quickly, um, the Christmas episode definitely happened before Michael tells Bobby that he broke up with his boyfriend.

Okay. Good to know. Thank you.

It was bugging me.

I did not care at all. So he wasn't bugging me.

I cared. Um, but yes, Michael, Michael had a boyfriend last Christmas, so that was

Okay. So he really is alone this Christmas.

Yeah.

Okay. Well, maybe we need to get a cat. So we'll stop breaking into his ex-wife's house.

So we, we also find out in this bit, uh, that the, they were discussing like what happened with the mom who had the heart attack, and she's gonna be fine. They'll put a stent in. She'll be home soon, but not in time for Christmas. So the little boy is gonna have to go to a group home until his mom is out of hospital.

Which triggers Hen to think, um, about what would've ever hap what would've happened to Denny had she and Karen not stepped in. And taken him when Eve gave him up.

Yeah. See, I'd for, I totally forgotten that Denny wasn't one of their, like, they weren't actually Denny's mother's, mother's. I dunno how that works. Um, but yeah, I'd forgotten, I'd forgotten all about Eve until she says this. And I was like, oh, was Denny adopted? And I'm like, of course he was. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Yes. I forget too,

I was like, that was, that was, that was a while ago now

because like technically he was adopted, but he was adopted when he was born, so it's the only family he knows.

Yeah. I mean, Hen was his mom anyway, but Yeah. Yeah. "That kid doesn't know how lucky he is, apparently." yeah. Yeah. Very short scene, but I guess we get a lot of information in it. We go back to Bathena and Bobby jumps into bed and shoves a phone in Athena's face. And, um, and, but it says that his, his test results came back clear across the board.

So it really is.

It's, we cut to, um,

it's Christmas morning, right?

Well, it's still the night before. It's, it's still Christmas Eve. Um, yet again, we have an entire scene with this woman and we never get her name. I just started calling us. I just started calling her Smurfette halfway through this. So, um,

yeah, fair.

She's not Smurfette yet though. Um, so we meet, uh, a young woman. It's Christmas Eve. She's on the phone with her mother. Uh, apparently her mother is complaining because, her daughter is being a terrible daughter and isn't coming over for Christmas because she has to work. And the daughter's like, like, "Not only do I have to work, I'm not gonna be able to eat anything because of this fricking toothache."

She does look like she's in a lot of pain.

Yeah. Her mouth is literally killing her. Um, and she blames her mother 'cause she inherited her bad teeth.

I, I was looking at this girl thinking that I recognized her and, and then I, I realized afterwards that she was giving me Kim Rhodes vibes. I think it was the haircut and the,

uh, the, the, like the pixie hair and the Yeah.

Yeah. She just looked a bit like a, but yeah. I don't, I don't think I've seen her in anything else. It was just that.

No, I don't think so. So the, the, not Kim Rhodes is in the bathroom, um, as she's talking to her mother, searching her medicine cabinet for, um, benzocaine. Looking for Benzocaine, she finally finds it. I don't know how much you're supposed to use, like what the, like I know it's not serving size, but what the, the, uh, recommended amount,

the dosage?

The recommended dosage is supposed to be, but um, the amount that she squeezes onto her finger seems rather excessive.

Oh. It's a massive amount. It's like golf ball size, maybe bigger.

Oh. I like, I'm terrible at judging things visually, but I was trying to figure out what that would be. 'cause it's definitely not like a pea size.

Yeah. It was a chunk.

Is it? It was massive. And she shoves it into her mouth and rubs it over her gums and gets this like, look of relief on her face. And leaves the bathroom. Then we get, it's Christmas morning, her alarm goes off, she's gotta get ready for work. Uh, a hand reaches out and slaps on the alarm clock to turn it off, except the hand is blue,

Da ba dee, da ba di...

And she, um, apparently has not looked down at herself, um, since getting out of bed. I don't know how that worked, but manages to get all the way to the bedroom and closes the medicine cabinet that she left open the night before and looks at herself. Sorry. Yes. Um, closes the, the cupboard sees the reflection of the mirror and she is like head to toe blue

Da ba dee, da ba di...

and we are going to pretend for the purposes of this, that like her lips and her tongue and the inside of her mouth is also blue because it should also be blue. They just can't put paint. Um, up in there.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, so she calls 9-1-1 and she says, "I'm blue."

Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee...

And the dispatcher just says, "You know, feelings of sadness and depression are really common during the holidays. Let me direct you to our mental health hotline." She's like, "no, I am literally blue damnit."

She has a blue house with a blue window.

Uh, so dispatcher, um, sends the 118.

Yeah. And this is, uh, this can actually happen, but I don't think that you go quite this blue.

Yeah. It's not like a bright blue. It's like a,

it's very smurf blue.

It's, it's very avatar esque. Yeah. It reminded me of this, of a, a tangent that I'll go into later if you want me to, but

Okay.

We always want your tangents. This episode has been nothing but tangents. I'm so sorry for Ellen having to edit this.

Um, interestingly enough, I think this is one of the rare emergencies where they knock on the door and their victim actually opens the door and lets them in. They don't have to like try and break down the door to get in.

This is definitely like, while they were opening the door, I was like, why did the, like, why did she have to call paramedics for this? She could have driven to the hospital.

Yeah. See, this is one of those things, again, why, why people reach for calling 9-1-1 and getting an ambulance when they could have driven down to urgent care. I don't know. Yeah. I'm guessing. For the drama.

For the drama.

For the drama because then we, we don't get, you know, her calling Buck and Eddie, the two very handsome men that are going to search her apartment,

her messy apartment.

But yes, I, I also find it really funny that, um, she opens the door and I don't know what dispatch told them, but I don't think they were expecting head to toe blue because the, all of them just, they were

The all look shocked.

Recoil when she opens the door and it takes Bobby a few seconds to like put his professionalism back in.

Um, she's also ranting the whole time. She's like "My teeth hurt. I like, I've got the, this Avatar look on top of that. I have to work today on Christmas. I mean, what kind of loser has to work on Christmas?"

And then they all look at each other.

They all look at each other

and she's like, "oh, sorry." Yeah. So yes, the handsome men go off to search her apartment because this wasn't humiliating enough already.

Yeah.

And they ask her what she's been using, blah, blah, blah. And then Eddie comes back from the bathroom with the Benzocaine tube, which of which he used the whole thing. And Buck holds up a ca trash can, which is full of empties.

Yeah. Buck brings the whole, instead of just saying, oh yeah. And the trash cans full event. No, no. He brings trash can.

He brings it.

And Smurfette is so humiliated by this that she starts seizing.

Yeah, they get her onto the floor and put the little CO thing on her.

Put the finger thingy on her. Yeah. It's the pulse ox monitor, but you know, that's

the thing that tells them how much oxygen. Right?

Now I'm gonna need anybody with medical training do those, does the pulse ox actually measure methemoglobin or whatever the hell that is? Levels

Methemoglobin?

Or does it act, does it just measure your oxygen levels?

I thought it just measured pulse and oxygen, but

because I don't know where Hen is getting call. Because they're getting very specific with the exact percentage of, um, of what's going on with this woman. And I don't think that they would be getting that with what they've got in their little bags.

Yeah. I feel like they probably should just be getting her to the hospital at this point, although,

yes, they should not be administering drugs at this point. 'cause what if they're wrong?

Yeah. They're gonna grab some methylene blue chloride

because as Eddie very helpfully explains, um, overuse of benzocaine can prevent the body from releasing red blood cells.

Yes. Thank you for med splaining that to us, I guess. And she, like, he, she starts bleeding when they try to insert a needle and

which, what, what the fuck was Hen doing when she's inserting that catheter?

The blood should not be spurting all over the place.

I know that the point was they needed everyone to see the blood so that buck can make the really hilarious comment of why is she bleeding chocolate syrup? But if hen is causing that much blood loss when she's inserting the catheter, especially since we've been told that she's back. Like I can imagine her doing this when she was still like in her, "Karen is grieving. It's fucking with me a little bit" period. Yeah. Um, but she's supposed to be back.

Well they said that the methylene blue stuff is gonna convert it back, convert her blood back to being red from the silver. Whatever. And then Chimney goes, Chim goes, "I've never seen a case this advanced. Let's give her two doses." It's like, oh my God, what are you doing?

What the fuck, Chim.

Get her to a hospital.

But it's fine. It works. Her skin color, it works. It turns back to normal. Yeah. Um, she wakes up and she's like, "oh, not blue, but my teeth still hurt."

Oh dear. "How am I gonna get, get through work?" She says

pretty sure that having to call 9-1-1 because you were blue and then you started seizing. We'll probably get you out work. Yes.

Alright, we're going back to the station house in Bobby is guiding the truck as someone reverses it.

Um, he tells the driver of the ladder truck that "we are good," meaning that the, the truck is in it's in line. Um, and then from behind him, he hears Athena say, "Yes, you are, Captain."

Yeah, you are. Wiggles brows

not in front of the kids Athena. So he asks his wife, "what are you doing here?" And Athena says, "We came to save you. Somebody said you were ordering takeout for Christmas." And Buck's all like, "I did want Turkey." So, so they all head for the kitchen. Um, Eddie was the only one paying attention or close attention because he says, "Wait, did she say we?"

And she did say we. Because as they get to the top of the stairs, all of their families are there.

Yay. Oh. It's a huge crowd!

Except for Buck's. Um,

Buck has no family there.

Buck has no family there.

All his family are already there!.

The 118 is his, his family.

Yeah. They're all his family.

Um, so Denny's there, um, there's a bunch of background firefighter family members probably.

Um, there was someone else in the truck with them when they arrived.

Yeah, background firefighters. It's fine. Um, but not the background firefighter. Not the background firefighter, no. Yeah, Christopher's there. And Eddie seems surprised. It's like, well, duh. Um, especially if Bob, uh, if Buck organized it because like obviously

It's like he watches Denny and Hen together and he is like, oh, that's sweet. Does not even cross his very beautiful, very empty mind that if Denny is there, then that would also mean that Christopher would be there.

Hey, Buck has the brain cell this episode

apparently.

Um, but yeah, so Christopher and his, um, abuela are there. And there's just a lot of people, mostly that we don't know.

We see Harry is there because he like tackles Bobby and this big hug while Christopher is being tackled in a big hug. And yes, this was all Buck's doing. Yeah, he not only did he want turkey and definitely did not want Chinese for Christmas dinner, um,

apparently, apparently he's really against Chinese.

He tells Hen that she inspired him and that they should all immerse themselves in the magic of Christmas

while pulling down a sprig of mistletoe and kissing her on the cheek.

He pulls it down and holds it up over her head. And I'm like, dude, number one, she's not like, you are not her type until she's married.

Yeah, her wife is standing right there.

Yeah, her wife is right there.

Oh, he's, he's sweet though. He just kisses her cheek. It's fine.

Yes, it's very, he's very sweet. Um. Hen repeats it it's a, it's a great surprise. And Karen says, well, that's not the only surprise that she and Denny bought a few guests. Um, at which point he Denny disappears and hen looks over and we see Leo and a whole bunch of kids kind of crowded around the, the pool table, um, that Hen apparently does not recognize.

Yes. So there is a serious overcrowding problem at the home, not enough foster parents to go around and hen has a light bulb over her head and she's like, "This is gonna sound crazy, but maybe we should consider..." um. Karen's already there. Karen's she's way ahead. Yeah, they, they've got an appointment already.

I love them so much.

So I think they're gonna be trying to foster. And then Maddie arrives. So

finally,

Chim goes downstairs to meet her. I don't know how he knew that. She, like, maybe she texted him to say we're here.

I'm assuming she did text him or maybe he's just been like hanging out and just watching, waiting for her. 'cause he seems very relieved that she's finally there. Um, but she's not alone because she's not the only one who has pulled strings. Um, and got people out of places that they should legally have been in. Because she sprung Leo's mom from the hospital

and, uh, she manages to like, I don't know how she recognizes Jim because she was unconscious the entire time that no, she,

I dunno if she. Yeah, she does wake up at the end,

that wonderful thing where as soon as they get a heartbeat, um, as soon as they get a heartbeat, um, the patient immediately regains consciousness.

Right. But also, like, to be fair, she was just in the car with Maddie the whole time, so we're like, I'm sure he, she's been like, oh yeah, like my boyfriend was one of the ones that saved you.

Yes,

yes. But yeah, she gives Chim a hug and or

like, who are you lady? Why are you kidnapping me? No, no, I'm taking you to the like, it's fine.

She gets reunited with her son.

Leo comes. Yeah.

Yeah.

She, he just, you know, gives her a big hug and she's like, ow, ow, ow. She gives a bit of a wince as he does that.

Well, she's just had major chest surgery.

Yeah.

Yeah. That, and he broke her sternum.

So they all go up for the food. Let's go eat before the bell rings. That's what Bobby calls down to them. So. They, they say some grace and then they get dig in.

Yeah. And the camera pulls back and we see that like everybody is at this main table. And I do not know how Athena got that much food cooked.

Yeah. Considering they only had been planning this for

like two days? Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep. And suddenly she's had like, how many kids did we see from the um, the group home show up?

Yeah. There's quite a few.

I mean, to be fair, there are other family members too, so I'm sure like Eddie's abuela probably could like brought a plate. Karen probably brought a plate.

You really think Athena would let other people help?

Well, she did say, Bobby said, "I can't believe you pulled this all together without us knowing." And she says "Santa isn't the only one who has elves." Yeah, right. Oh.

But then we get, oh!

and then she, then we cut to Buck and he's just so, so proud of himself. He's huge smile.

It's my favorite, like Buck gif. He's just like, his entire face is just a smile. He is got his hands clasped and he, yeah. Two miniature apples.

Yeah. Like he shrunk somehow between the start of the episode and now he's got smaller.

I don't know. He is so

cute.

But yeah, he definitely had a hand in, in whatever happened. I really don't think he had anything to do with the cooking though.

And Athena thanks him for helping with it. Yeah. And she says, "I think your New Year's resolution should be to use that head for good instead of evil." I'm like, what are you thinking of?

What?

What has he done?

What type of head?

Oh, oh my God. But no, he hasn't done anything evil ever. Stop it.

Now I'm wondering how blowjobs can be evil

with teeth?

Ooh. But some people like teeth.

I guess it de depends on your point of view,

listeners

anyway,

use your blow jobs for good, not evil,

Moving right along.

No, before, before we moved right along, there was a, it was a quick scene where, uh, we see Athena's kids, what are their names? Harry and May, um, distributing the presents, which I assume were the, the stash of presents that, uh, Karen and hen had. Um, and it looks like that one of the little flaps on the end of them has been opened, so they must have gone through and like opened or like kept one end open so they could see what was inside the wrapping. Oh,

right.

They later on, one present gets given to Christopher as well by Buck, who is so adorable when he does it, like gets down, like "Christopher, look!" Um,

he's the best stepdad.

He helps Chris open it and one flap is already like, not taped down and, and will fly straight up.

Bobby sees Michael lurking.

Yeah. So he, he leaves his wife to continue talking about Buck's head and goes off to, um, to see why Michael is pouting over in the corner. And it turns out he is, he's got a really good reason to be pouting and looking sad.

Yeah, he is like, this is a nice Christmas. And probably just like, okay, actually this, this whole scene is really strange. Like the, the music is like really ominous and it makes it feel like Michael's about to attack somebody. Like it's that kind of what is happening? Because he says, you know, they, they mean the world to me. It's like. Okay. Are you about to go postal on Bobby or something?

I think that, yeah.

Doesn't really know what to say.

And the, the sad music and the ominous music is, this is potentially Michael's last Christmas on this earth.

And he doesn't want Bobby to just tell anybody else yet. Like, yeah, just, just let me have this Christmas

and then May interrupts them. He's like, mom wants to take picture with everyone. And Michael's like, now that he's successfully dumped his burden on Bobby, he's like, "oh yeah, sure. Let's go take pictures." Yeah. Bobby's just like, what? Standing there like, what the fuck has just happened?

And so, uh, when this scene came up, I was like, oh, this is the picture that we used at Christmas for the

Yes!

For the tweet that we put out. They all,

you finally got the context for the scene

Yeah. They all squeeze in around the table and, um, take a, a picture. Yes. For Merry Christmas,

I did have to check to make sure, because it, they're using a, um, a camera on a tripod with a timer. And I had to make sure that like the, the random member of the 118 that sets the timer actually made it back in frame in time, because I would not have put Bobby past like, oh no, no, you, you take the picture. You don't get to be in the picture. You have to take the picture, but

"You take the photo, Anderson." "My name's Ferguson. What the fuck? Bobby."

He makes it back into frame. So there it's um, it's like, it's the core 118. It's Bobby and Michael with their arms around each other in the back row. Um, it's all their family members and a couple of random members of the 118 that have snuck in.

Yeah. That were allowed to eat this week.

Well, I think everybody ate, but they might have been allowed to eat at like the main table.

Geez. 'cause there were

several tables set up.

There were several tables set up.

There were a lot of people on shift on Christmas day.

I'm wondering if they don't have every firehouse open, but like, I don't know. I don't know how they do it.

Well, they'd have to have a full quota of people, wouldn't they? Like still, I'm sure there's plenty of fires happen, still happen on Christmas Day.

Yeah. But they might rather, if you think. Um, maybe each firehouse has like a, I'm just gonna throw out a number here, um, like a 10 mile radius of what they respond to. Maybe on Christmas day, they, they double that radius so that other houses can drop off for that day.

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering.

They might rotate

Or if they just do A shift one year and B shift the next year.

Yeah. Or how they, they deal with it with, um, parents who maybe wanna take the shift off to spend time with their kids.

Yeah. It'd be hard. Yeah. I mean, this Christmas episodes go, this was, um, it had its ups and downs. I mean, it, it had some like really funny sections, but then also desperately sad. Yes.

Yes. Funnily enough was not the Christmas episode I was thinking of when I remembered that we were having a Christmas episode this week. Oh, okay. Because I think I skipped over this one completely and I was thinking about the season four Christmas episode.

There's a season four Christmas episode.

Yes.

We'll get to that next year.

Um, but yeah, I like, I liked the, I definitely didn't see the twist coming the first time I watched it.

Yeah, yeah. 'cause well we did just sort of get the all clear for Bobby, so it was like, okay, thank God every, everyone's okay.

It definitely sets it up like you're gonna, you're thinking that Bobby's gonna end up sick and then surprise it's actually Michael.

Well, especially when they're like Bobby received some shocking news and like he does receive some shocking news, but it's not related to him. It's not him. Yeah. It's somebody else's shocking news.

Yeah, they did, they did do a bit of a bait and switch there.

Switcheroo, yeah.

Yeah.

Um, cool. So what have we got on the cards for next week?

Oh, next week. Well, they, uh, when this first aired back in 2019, they had their, um, Christmas hiatus. Oh, so we've just, so this is the end of season three A. So then next week's episode is the start of three B all the way in March.

Oh my God. We're almost, we're almost in real time then. Yeah, because this episode will air on the 11th of March. And then the episode that we're about to co like that we cover aired on March 16 originally. And we'll release it on March 18.

Right. Except it'll be five years later.

Except five years later. Oh.

But we're also like the middle of March is right when the Covid stuff started really getting serious. Yeah, because it was like I managed to just have like a birthday party while we were still allowed to actually do that. And then,

oh, well Queensland locked down later as well. We locked down in Melbourne very early and for a long time.

Yeah, I don't remember. Oh God, it seems like such a long time ago. And also like just the other day,

not that long ago. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not, I can tell you that we are not up to Covid times in the 9-1-1 time yet.

Okay.

Uh, but instead the 118 are going to respond to a skydiving trip gone wrong, a bank rep injured in a home repossession and a lovestruck assistant whose lunch run ends in disaster. Meanwhile, Athena and the family come to term with Michael's difficult health decision, and we meet Albert! Chimney's half-brother from Korea.

I had no idea Albert was in this season. I thought it was next season.

I'm so happy that Albert shows up.

Yes.

Um, so that is,

I look forward to meeting Albert

Guest star John Harlan Kim who as, um, Aussie watchers of 9-1-1. I mean, I don't know if you guys are gonna recognize him. I definitely didn't, but apparently he is another, like soapy graduate.

Yeah, I think he's in Neighbors, but I didn't actually know until recently that he was Australian.

No, neither did I until I saw, I watched Did you see the, the, like the, the video call between him and Oliver and just the accents were just completely

Yeah. And I was like, what happening right now?

Oh, now that I know that he's an Aussie I'll be listening out. I'll be like, how's his accent?

Yeah. I'm excited to rewatch like, although now that I know,

does he have an American accent or is he from Korea? So he is got a Korean accent.

Yeah. So you gotta think that it's like a Korean Australian playing a person who is like fresh off the boat from Korea. Right. So the accent is interesting. Okay. Um, and I don't even know if we have any triggers for this episode. Um, we don't, there are no triggers for the next episode.

Oh. Then it'll be wholesome family fun.

I'm sure it'll be wholesome. Family fun Chim's brother's showing up this episode.

Lemme check, lemme check. Oh, sorry. Yes. So we have continuing discussions of brain tumors. Um, we have the trigger just says fish. Um, but it is a little bit more involved than that because it's going to be like choking. Um, we have,

Buck, not again.

No, not Buck this time. Um, appar, we have foster parenting slash positive. I don't know whether positive foster parenting is a trigger or not, or whether it was like foster parenting is possibly a trigger, but don't worry. It's good foster parenting. And we have some gore, so Damian is gonna be thrilled because specifically we have intestines on the outside of the body.

Yay.

Oh, yay. Always a fun time.

Yeah.

Okay, well, please let us know what you thought about this episode. Um, you can leave us a comment on Spotify or anywhere else that you listen to this episode or you can go to thatweewooshow.com and find out all the other ways you can get in touch with us. Uh, we would love to hear what you thought of this Christmas shenanigans. Thank you everyone for listening, and we will see you next time to talk about episode 11, which is called "Seize the Day". See you then.

Bye

Bye.

9-1-1 is a fictional show, but many of the situations portrayed happen in the real world too. If any of the topics we've discussed in this episode have affected you, please know you are not alone. You can call or text numbers in your country for help. Just Google crisis support in your location to find out the number. If you enjoy our podcast, you can help us out by leaving us a review on Spotify or your preferred listening app and by sharing our social media posts.

Um, so my fun tangent. Yes. Um, that you can completely cut out if you want, or put it the blooper reels. I don't mind. Um, this scene reminded me of a story that I heard about, um, the original Star Trek series.

Oh, yeah.

So there was an episode one of the like very early episodes where Kirk goes on, you know, their, their five, the Enterprise is off on their five year mission. They go to a planet. Um, and there is a slave girl who is presented to Kirk and she's dancing. And because it is an alien planet, um, this slave girl is supposed to be an alien. So they paint her green and she's like in full green body paint, head to toe.

Yeah.

So they shoot the scene. And then they come back to watch like the dailies and she's not green anymore.

Oh.

And they're like, what the hell is going on? So they shoot it again, put her in all the body paint, shoot the scene, send the film. 'cause it's like literally film back in those days to the editing suite to get put together. They come back and watch the dailies. She's not green. She's a very healthy human pink. And they did this like three times until they finally figured out that the film was getting to the technicians who like adjust the color.

Oh.

Oh

no! So they had to like tell them like, no, if somebody shows up on the film and they are a different color, they are meant to be that other color. Do not touch them.

They're lucky. It didn't just, um, they didn't just completely vanish her. If she was green, it's like, oh, it's a green screen.

No, but it was like back in the, back in the day. So there was no green screen. It was just on a set with a woman in green body paint. Yeah. So yeah, that was, that was the tangent. That was the thing that this scene reminded me of.

Beautiful.

That's funny. I love it.

Don't you love having like neurodivergence, we hear one thing and we just like, our brain goes off in completely other directions.

Absolutely.

And we have to tell you what it is.

Absolutely.

That's what makes podcasting so much fun.

Are you done barking? Have you run outta barks for the night? Has your bark quota been met? Will your boss at the Bark Factory be satisfied with your barking? No?

Your barking performance?

Do you need a barking performance management?