4.05: Buck Begins

Episode Transcript
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(00:14):
9-1-1. What's your emergency?
Welcome back to That WeeWoo Show, apodcast 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.
As always, thank you to everyone whohas listened to our episodes so far.
Shared our social media posts and ratedus on Spotify and or Apple podcasts.

(00:36):
We will forever be indebtedto you for doing so.
Uh, our shout outs this week go toKeira, Ella, Imakestuff and mayawolfinger
for leaving comments across oursocial media and podcasting platforms.
We haven't talked about comments that havebeen left in a while, so they've stacked

(00:59):
up, um, for probably too many to actuallygo through and read them all individually.
But please know that we did laugh,um, over the funny ones, and we
did appreciate you taking your timeout to reach out and give us your
thoughts about the, the variousepisodes that you left comments on.
Yeah.

(01:20):
Okay.
Before we get started with this episode,we just wanted to quickly mention that
this, uh, although this episode willbe coming out in over a week's time,
so it'll be a few, like a long timeago by then, but, um, just this week we
got the terrible news that, podcasting,our fandom legend, um, Jeremy Greer

(01:41):
of Monster of the Week podcast, uh,unfortunately lost his battle with cancer.
Alice, uh, I don't think Bex,you've been, you'd listen to Monster
of the Week that much, right?
No.
Yeah, I got all the way up to season 10.
Yeah.
But yeah, like listened to them a lotfor a good, like six months straight.

(02:01):
Um, and was definitely likepart of my inspiration when I
said yes to doing this podcast.
Yeah.
Obviously this kind of format ofrewatch podcast, um, Monster of the
Week was a big inspiration for that.
And, um, they weren't sort ofthe first podcast that I ever got
into, but they were certainly thefunniest and most, uh, insightful.
And, you know, Chris and Jeremyhad a great, great sort of

(02:24):
chemistry to them, to their shows.
So if for some reason you haven't,um, you are listening to this podcast
and you hadn't come across Monster ofthe Week before, um, definitely look
them up and they've, they covered thewhole of Supernatural as well as Merlin
and, um, they were doing an X-Filesshow and they, uh, they were doing,
working their way through Hannibal.

(02:44):
They also covered
like some of the.
Some of the Supernatural novels andthe comic, like the com, the episode
where they did the comic, I was cryingwith laughter, like trying to drive.
Yeah.
Very funny and
crying.
It was so funny.
So good.
So, um, I don't think that Chrisor any of Jeremy's family or are
likely to hear this, I, I don't knowif they're um, you know, 9-1-1, uh,

(03:08):
first responder show fans or anything.
But, um, we just wanted to wish ourcondolences to everybody who knew Jeremy
and we're extremely sad that, such alovely, friendly and um, supportive
to the community and everything.
He was just really nice guy.
So, sad times.
Yeah.
Lots of love to their Discordcommunity and everything too.

(03:30):
'cause they had a really big, they havestill have a very big community there
that um, is feeling it a lot this week.
Yeah, he was just way too young.
Like, it's just awful.
Let's go back to the weewoo show.
Yeah, which is alsosuper cheery this week.
Oh, this week is just full on.
It was very full on episode.

(03:51):
So let's just jump right into itbecause this is a very special episode.
But before we start talking aboutthat, Alice, could you remind us
what happened in last week's episode?
Yeah.
Last week on 9-1-1, May graduated toher own desk at the dispatch center,
Athena solved a hairy murder mysteryand Chimney struggled to keep the

(04:12):
Buckley family secret when Buckand Maddie's parents came to town.
That's right.
And this episode is season four,episode five called "Buck Begins".
Uh, we actually watched this episodealtogether last weekend because we were,
we did!
In Melbourne together forSupernatural Convention and we

(04:33):
had lovely, uh, few days, um, andwe watched this episode together.
So.
And yes, there were moments when Aliceand I were just watching Ellen and
not actually watching the episode.
Awkward.
Um, no.
It was, it was great.
It was a lot of fun.
So this episode originally aired inFebruary of 2021, and the official

(04:57):
summary, uh, says that Buck confronts thescars of his childhood when Maddie reveals
a painful family secret and as well asthe 118 race to save the lives of workers
trapped in a five alarm factory fire.
So, triggers for this episode include badparenting, cancer, a death of a child,

(05:18):
um, not shown on screen, but talkedabout, uh, we have domestic violence,
grief, and a motorcycle accident.
I would also probably throw in a triggerfor, you know, industrial fire and
people trapped in said industrial fire.
Although maybe that just goeswithout saying since it's 9-1-1.

(05:40):
Yeah.
And it is a five alarm fire, et cetera.
Mm. We're in 1996 and I'm not even gonnapretend to not know who these kids are.
Oh, it's great.
It's great casting though.
Like they really,
it's very good.
Yeah.
They really look like them.
so it's 1996 and a young Maddie isteaching a young Buck how to ride

(06:02):
a bike without training wheels.
She is, it's so cute.
It's very cute.
I love that in this little clip,we already can see, um, like
Buck's personality coming throughbecause he keeps falling down.
He keeps hurting himself.
Um, he's struggling, buthe refuses to give up.

(06:24):
Yeah.
Until he, he gets it.
So there, there is this moment thatis just, I know that it's normal um,
teaching kids how to ride on bikestechnique, when you tell them that
you're not gonna let them go or you'regonna keep holding onto them, when
in fact you are letting them go.
It's just the symbolism of Maddiepromising that she's not gonna let him

(06:45):
go, but she does let him go consideringwhat happens in the rest of the episode.
Oh yeah.
Um, that just kind of hit mereally hard, but, um, he goes on
his bike, he's pedaling Maddiepromises not to let him go.
She does let him go, but it'sokay because he is doing it.
Um,
he's doing it so well right into traffic.
He's unfortunately doing itstraight into an intersection.

(07:08):
Um,
I like that he's like, he's beenusing training wheels and then
Maddie's just like, oh no, Iforgot to teach him how to steer.
You know what I, I don't knowif he was using training wheels.
No.
This is the first time thathe's seen the bike, right?
Because she only just found it,
I had the sense,
Maddie says, you sure you don'twanna go back to training wheels?

(07:29):
Maybe, but I get the sense that this isthe first time he's been on this bike.
So maybe Maddie pulls it out,it's got training wheels on it
and Buck's like, I don't need those.
Yeah.
So she pulls the trainingwheels off and like off he goes,
oh, maybe
the, the writers obviouslydidn't think that far through.
Um, but yes, Buck is ridingstraight into oncoming traffic.

(07:51):
Maddie freaks out because shedidn't teach him how to turn.
He thankfully figures it out prettyquickly, um, and starts pedaling
back up the hill towards her.
But a car coming up the road behindthem spooks him and he falls off
the bike quite spectacularly.
Yeah.

(08:12):
And this is when I am very gladthat I grew up and my mother still
lives on a very quiet cul-de-sac.
So when my kids were riding onthe road, there were no cars.
Yeah.
Maybe it wasn't the best place to, youknow, start teaching him how to, there,
there seems to be a lot of cars around.
Yes.
Like even when he turns aroundand comes back the other way, he
nearly gets hit by a car again.

(08:34):
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So Buck falls off the bike.
Something about that summons the Buckleyparents, um, who do not come running out
with cries of concern for their child.
Phillip comes out quite annoyedthat they're making a ruckus.
And Margaret, the mother's first wordsare, "Maddie, what did you do to him?"

(09:00):
Like, I know that older siblings oftentorment their younger siblings, but I
think that's taking it a little too far.
Yeah.
He's like crying and saying, "Mommy!"and Maddie's like, "he's fine.
You are all right.
Right?" Like the, the standard,like older, older sibling thing.
Yep.
But when they see the bike.

(09:21):
They the, the tone changes againand Mom is like, "Where did you
get that?" so apparently Maddiejust found it in the garage and Mom
is like getting real mad at Dad.
Yeah,
She's, you know, he, apparently hewas supposed to get rid of this bike
and we don't know, we don't see untilMaddie takes Buck back into the house

(09:42):
that Phillip picks up the bike and it'sactually got a little, um, number plate
thing on the back of it that says Daniel.
Yeah.
So you realize that it's Daniel's bike.
Yeah.
So Daniel, as we learned at thevery end of last week's episode
is their brother and he died.
Yeah.

(10:03):
And then the episode cuts back to prettymuch where the last episode left off.
Buck is still over at, uh, theMadni apartment and Maddi is
explaining to him who Daniel is toBuck and to the audience as well.
And we find out that Daniel was seven whenBuck was born and he passed a year later.

(10:27):
Yeah.
So he, so Maddie was Daniel'solder sister as well?
Yes.
Right.
And we also find out that, um,Daniel died of juvenile leukemia.
Um, he got sick right afterthe photo of Daniel on the
bike that Buck found was taken.
And they had three years of doctorsin hospitals and every treatment

(10:50):
they could find, but nothing worked.
Yeah.
Buck is, Buck is also thinkingthe same thing I was this time.
Like, it doesn't make any sense.
And like, yeah.
Why would they keep it from him that,why would they keep it a secret?
Unless they, and, and as Maddiesays, they were grieving.
Um, but is that any reason tojust completely not like pro make

(11:11):
Maddie promise not to tell Buck.
That's Yeah, but Buck works it out.
He's very switched on in this episode.
He's definitely got the brain cell.
I know we give him a lot of shit.
Um, and sometimes he's written to be likethe himbo, but in this episode he figures
out what is going on very, very quickly.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, he does
because he asks Maddie, "I'm surprisedthat they didn't try, um, bone

(11:35):
marrow transplant," which is commontechnique for treating leukemia.
And Maddie says, "No, we did, but nobodyin the family was a match. Not dad, not
mom, not me." And the penny drops andBuck goes, "They couldn't find a match,
so they made one me, I was born to be amatch for Daniel." And Maddie confirms

(11:59):
that. She's like, "Yes, you were a match.
But yeah, didn't, the cells didn't graft.
Daniel had a relapse and he died."So not only was Buck a savior
baby, he was a failure savior baby.
He was born to save Daniel and he failed.

(12:19):
Poor Evan.
Poor Evan.
Poor Buck.
No, poor Evan.
Because he was Evan at that point.
Yeah.
I mean, it's a, obviously they like it.
He, he's taking it really hard.
Like that's a really hard thingto hear like so many years later.
Even they wouldn't have told himthat when he was a kid, I'm sure.

(12:40):
Well, I hope they wouldn'thave, um, in any case,
no, he's,
they didn't tell him anything.
Yeah.
But yeah, he takes it so hard and hejust leaves and, and Maddie's calling him
saying "Don't leave!" But he, he leaves.
We go to the title card.
When we come back, I think it's the nextday, and Phillip and Margaret are back

(13:01):
over at Maddie's apartment where she hasapparently told them that she told Buck
everything and they are furious with her.
'cause apparently it wasn't herplace to tell Buck anything.
Yeah.
Poor Buck.
Poor Maddie.

(13:22):
Yeah.
Well, she tells them off, she'slike, " You can't tell me what to do.
I'm not a kid." Like, bugger off,basically. And they're like, "Watch
the way you speak to your mother.
Oh." So yeah.
They're so, they're so waspy.
They're so like all of the intricatesocietal rules and expectations

(13:44):
just, oh, they make me so mad.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Because, you know, Maddie issupposed to have deference to
them simply because they are olderthan her and they are her parents.
And she's like, fuck that.
I'm an adult now myself.
You don't get to tell me what to do.
And Phillip tries to explain to herthat they didn't have a choice because,

(14:06):
um, the people of the town were judgingthem and they were looking at them and
they were talking about them after theyfound out that they, being, the people
found out that the Buckleys had, hadEvan simply to be a bone marrow donor,
and the Buckley's couldn't stand havingpeople talk about them and look at
them strangely and judge them so theypicked up and left to avoid scrutiny.

(14:27):
Yeah.
I mean, it's easy to judge them for theirdumb decisions, but I mean, the things
that you do when you're grieving are,you know, hard to predict, but like,
yeah, they made a right mess of this.
Completely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's ridiculous.
Margaret tries to justify it by tellingMaddie that Maddie's not a mother.
She doesn't understand yet.

(14:49):
I think Maddie was about to slap her.
Yeah, I would
because she, she mightnot have been a mother.
She might not have lost achild, but she lost a brother.
Mm-hmm.
Then she had to raise another brotherwithin that household full of grief.
And she tells them that no matterhow hard they thought they tried,
they didn't try hard enough.

(15:09):
So then we go to another flashback,
we go, we flashback to basicallywitnessing their "trying hard",
which definitely is not hard enough.
Margaret and Phillip are arguing in theliving room while baby Evan, who's still
like, he's got a massive bloody knee thatnobody has dealt with yet, is sitting

(15:31):
on the stairs, listening to them fight.
Um, and Margaret is upset.
She can't understand why Phillip keptthe bike, and Phillip is just saying, "I
wanted one thing to remember him by." AndI wanna slap Margaret once again because
she says "We live with the reminder ofhim every day staring us in the face."
Ah.

(15:52):
Oh, I hate this woman.
Yeah.
I hate this woman so much.
So while they're arguing, it'sup to Maddie to grab the first
aid kit and patch Evan up.
And Evan's blaming himself.
Yes.
He's still Evan.
Are we gonna call himEvan when he is a kid?
Like,
yes, because he's not, he's still Evan.
Yeah, that's right.

(16:12):
Baby Buck.
He, he like evolves into Buck later.
I feel like he does.
Okay.
We can call him Evan.
Um, it just feels weird now.
I know.
Yeah.
But for those of you who aren'tlooking at our computer screens
right now in the transcripts,if it's current day, it's Buck.

(16:33):
If it's a flashback,then it's usually Evan.
Um, mostly because at that point Maddieand his parents are calling him Evan,
like it's only present day that he'sactually being referred to as Buck.
So that's why I've done that.
Yeah.
But yes, Evan is pretty much convincedthat his parents are upset at him,
and Maddie is trying to convincehim that, no, he's not in trouble.

(16:58):
People just yell when they caretoo much, they overreact and
they feel bad about it later.
And this is kind of confirmed whenPhillip calls Evan downstairs and says,
"Hey, why don't we go get you a bike andwe'll get some ice cream later as well."
And you can see the nucleus ofBuck forming at this point, because

(17:23):
he's putting two and two togetherand he is going, oh, I get hurt
and I get attention from my dad.
He takes me out to buy abike and get ice cream.
Yeah.
He's like, "they're, they'rereally not mad." Yeah.
And Maddie's like, "That'sjust what happens when they
worry." And Evan's like, yeah,
that's what happens when they worry.
Yeah.
Oh, so if I make them worry.

(17:46):
So then we get a hilarious littlemontage set to Smashmouth, which is an
absolutely perfect needle drop becauseone of the first lyrics is, you know,
I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed,and we get Buck testing his hypothesis.
He sets up a ramp using a pieceof plywood and some tin cans

(18:06):
that he can jump his bike off.
He scrapes his elbow.
Phillip comes back with pizza.
He goes skateboarding, he's practicinghis ollie, he hits a rock and
goes flying, scrapes up his face.
Nothing happens.
So he decides to climb a tree.
He falls out of said tree.
Breaks his arm.
Yeah.
Right in front of mom.
Mom brings, mom bringshim breakfast in bed.

(18:30):
Yep.
Oh.
Um, we then have, after this littlemontage of baby Buck hurting himself,
worse and worse, we immediately goto the present day and at the station
house and Buck's told all of them.
Like, Buck's entertaining anentire, like the entire firehouse.

(18:50):
And Eddie is just like, "This explainsso much about you." And Hen's like,
"It's a miracle that you even survivedchildhood." Eddie's like, "It's a
miracle you survived yesterday."
Aw,
Poor Buck.
And just in case the audiencehasn't figured out, Buck spells
it out for you is very clearly.
I was like, "It was the only wayI could get their attention."

(19:12):
He's like, "Guess I know why."
He's still, he's stillreally down on himself here.
He is just, they just had me for partsand they turned out to be defective.
Yeah.
So poor thing.
And, and Bobby, you know, playsthe kind of mediator card and
says, "have you talked to themabout it?" And he's like, "No.

(19:32):
Like why would I talk to them about?"
Why would I talk to my parents?
Yeah.
But, and they try, like, Hen triesto assure him that he matters too.
And he's like, "Not to them." So thenChim picks this moment to arrive 'cause
he wasn't there previously and tries tospeak to Buck privately and Buck's like
"No, they all heard, like just, they allknow what's going on." And so then he, you

(19:58):
know, Chim's apologizing for not tellinghim already and Buck's like, "I get it.
Maddie put you in a tough spot.
She does that." It's like, ohBuck, you're so mad at everybody.
Yeah.
Can I tell you my littlehead canon for this scene?
Yeah,
of course.
So in my head.

(20:19):
Buck comes storming into the firehouse,ranting and raving about what has
just happened, what he's just learned.
Because he found out at somepoint, I don't know how that
Chimney had learned this story.
That Maddie had told Chimney.
So he comes in assuming that everybodyat the 118 already knows, because

(20:41):
anything you tell Chimney, he willimmediately tell everybody else.
Oh,
but then he comes in and he's rantingand raving and they're all looking
and no one knows
like, what the fuck are you?
What are you talking about, Buck?
And so suddenly he has to sitdown and he has to explain it
all to Bobby, Eddie and Hen.
And then Hen goes, "So that'swhat he was keeping a secret."

(21:02):
yes,
yes.
And Buck's like, "You mean Chim keptthis a secret from everybody? Oh my God."
And so that pisses Buck off evenmore because he well knows that
Chimney cannot keep a secret.
But this one secret that was so importantto Buck, that was the one secret he kept.
Yeah.
Everything else goes through Chimney.
But this one, this such, thisimportant that turns the tide of

(21:24):
Buck's sort of knowledge about himself.
That's the one that hemanaged to keep a secret.
So that's why he's evenmore pissed at Chim.
'cause he is like number one, Maddietold you before she told me, and
two, you didn't go blabbing it.
So I didn't find out
oof.
That's my headcanon for what thefuck was going on in this scene.

(21:45):
I mean, that makes total sense to me.
Yeah.
Poor Buck, poor Chim.
I mean,
Poor buck.
He tried.
He did.
He did what he was told for once.
For once.
Oh dear.
Uh, but yeah, so Chimney, asBuck is stalking away, tells him

(22:05):
that Maddie really wants to talk.
And then we get another flashbackback to 2004, this time where
Buck and Maddie are in a Jeep.
They pull up in front of a houseand baby Buck slash Evan says, "So
what did you wanna talk about?"The segues are so subtle in this

(22:26):
episode, but I do enjoy them.
They are still quite clever.
Yeah.
Who wrote this one by the way?
Do we, should, we should.
Juan Carlos Coto.
Okay.
That explains everything.
Um,
so they pull up andthey're a little older now.
We've got, um.

(22:46):
Maddie says that she heardthat Evan got grounded again.
"What did you do?" And apparently he triedout for the football team without actually
having permission from mom and dad.
Maddie's gonna tell him somethingreally crazy, but before she can,
her phone rings and it's Doug and shehas to explain that she's with Evan.

(23:07):
And of course she'll be home for dinner.
And Evan's like, "Why has he alwaysgotta know where you are and what you're
doing?" It's like, oh, he's like, Idon't know, 14 years old or something.
And he knows exactlywhat is going on here.
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Maddie's tells, tells him that,um, it's sweet that Doug always
wants to know where she is.
That means that he cares about her.

(23:28):
And Evan's like, "I don't like him."
Yeah.
Good instincts.
Young Bucky.
None of us do.
None of us do.
None of us do.
So he, he reminds Maddie, "Hey, youwere gonna tell me something crazy?" I
think we need to point out that it, the.
They have pulled up in frontof the Buckley's old house.
Yeah.
So the photo of Daniel that Buck foundlast episode was in front of their

(23:52):
old house and Buck's just like, "Oh,whose house is this?" And yeah, so
then in the flashback, it's that house.
And so there's like a question in mymind is the... Maddie then goes on to
tell Buck that she's moving to Boston,but there's this moment that I wonder
whether she was actually at thispoint going to tell Buck about Daniel.

(24:14):
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
And then Doug distracted her
because she was like, well,I'm getting out, so this is the
only time that I can tell him
Yes.
Instead she says, "Doug's going tomedical school, so I'm going to go to
Boston with him and I'm going to workso that he can go to medical school."
Yeah,
I'm gonna do nursing school, study nights,work during the day, support my boyfriend.

(24:41):
Ah, Maddie,
All Buck hears is thatMaddie's leaving him.
Yep.
Maddie's leaving him.
But, but she, he does make herpromise that, well, she says, "I'm
just a phone call away whenever youneed me." And he makes her promise.
They do their little pinkypromise thing, which is really
cute every time they do it.
Yeah.

(25:02):
Um, and I mean, these two actors, I mean,the casting in this episode's fantastic.
They really, it feelslike Buck and Maddie, like
Yeah.
Even though they don't lookexactly the same, um, as their
modern day ones, they, yeah.
Excellent work acting people.
Yes, good job casting.
Yes.

(25:23):
So in another wonderful littlesegue, Maddie says that.
Buck can't get rid of her that easy.
We flash forward to the present whereBuck is polishing up one of the trucks
and Maddie is lurking behind his shoulder.
Maddie just shows up.
Surprise
in the reflection, like even
surprise motherfucker.

(25:43):
But so she has resorted to showingup at the firehouse because
Buck is not answering her calls.
Or her texts or her carrier pigeonsand the myriad other ways she's trying
to get in touch with him and sheneeds to make sure that he is okay.
He attached to a Corgi andit came running Anyway.
Um, we've been over that one before.

(26:03):
She wants to explain, but Buckis like, " You've been keeping
the secret for 29 years.
Why is it now an emergency?"
Yeah,
but because you won't talk to meand you and like she's worried about
him basically, and because he'sworking and he probably shouldn't
be, and he takes offense to this.
He's like, "You can't take that awayfrom me too." 'cause remember that Buck

(26:25):
doesn't have any life outside work.
Work is everything.
He's so, he's so harsh in this scene,but it's like a truthful harsh, because
he whips around and reminds Maddiethat they were supposed to be a team.
It was supposed to be him andMaddie against their parents.
Um, but now he's discovered that itwas his parents and Maddie against him.

(26:48):
Mm. And now Maddie's not here for Buck.
She's here to make herselffeel better about herself.
And on that absolute truth bomb,the alarms start going off.
Although, funnily enough, thealarms are going off at Station
51, which this isn't Station 51.
This is Station 118, but they'regetting the alarm anyway.

(27:13):
Uh, there is apparently a five alarm fireat an industrial complex, and so everybody
jumps into the rigs and rolls outleaving Maddie alone in the engine bay.
When I was watching this episodefor the second time, I thought this
whole fire business was at the endof the episode and I was so confused.
I'm like, we're only a fewminutes in, like, why are we

(27:36):
going to the fire already?
But yeah, this, we do this part first andthen we've got flow on things afterwards.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they do roll up to a large industrialcomplex, which is quite severely on fire.
Mm-hmm.
They've got a bunch of differenthouses there and trucks.
Um, but there's a, Bobby explainseverything as he, you know, as they

(27:59):
get out of the trucks that, um,
exposition captain.
Yeah.
Yep.
Captain Mehta is, is the incidentcommander, so his, his show.
The guy who's the commander explainsthat it's a hand sanitizer factory, which
I think is hilarious considering we'restill in, in officially in pandemic times.
Yeah.
I think they said that it wasactually found this a perfume factory.
Yeah.

(28:20):
And it converted, yeah.
Actually a perfume factory convertedto sanitizer, which I find incredibly
realistic because I do remember wehad a couple, I think we have a, a
gin distillery down where I live.
Yeah.
Um, and obviously pandemic, nobody isgoing out and visiting bars and drinking.
So they started making hand sanitizer.
Yep.
A lot of places did it

(28:41):
just to keep afloat during the pandemic.
Yeah.
I mean if you've got the,the equipment to do it.
Yeah.
Then good idea.
Okay.
So there are 32 workers inside, butthey've only accounted for 20 and they,
the sprinkler systems aren't working,so this is what they're heading into
hand sanitizer that is highly flammable.

(29:04):
So, they have no ideawhere anything's stored.
No, because when they converted tohand sanitizer, they didn't update
the city with all of their sort of
hazard storage plans, I guess.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So Captain Mehta, who I find itvery interesting that he gets
introduced in this episode and hassuch a big role in this episode.

(29:28):
He tells Bobby that it's basicallya minefield in there and then we cut
to Bobby relaying this information tothe 118 and continuing the thought.
So Mehta says "it's a minefield outthere," Bobby says, "and a large one."
Yeah, they do.
Like, the cuts are very, 'cause there'sa lot to go through this episode.
So the cuts are very quick.

(29:49):
In case you weren't listening to Mehtaclosely enough, or you can't do the math.
Bobby reminds us there are 12workers unaccounted for, he and
Eddie are gonna be joining the1 33 going to the Charlie side.
Hen, Buck and Chim are going to be workingwith two firefighters from the 1 41,
which is Scott and Lorenzo, I believe.
Um, they're going in on the alpha side.

(30:10):
While everybody is listening to Bobby,buck is in the background dissociating.
Yeah.
Like his head is not in the game at alland nobody except Chim seems to notice.
Sure.
It'll be fine.
It's not like he just had, you know,big secret revealed about his family.
It's
like 100, 100% this is supportingMaddie's argument that he

(30:31):
should not be working right now.
He absolutely should not be working.
And he said, like Chim even says tohim like, you know, says hey to him
and Buck's just like, "Not now, Chim."It's like, no, he's not about to have
like a big conversation with you, but.
Anyway, Chim's like, "You know, youcan't run away from this forever."
Oh, he might.
And Buck's like, "Sure I can. It's theBuckley family way." It's like, damn Buck.

(30:55):
Yeah.
Oof.
Harsh but true this episode,
You're not incorrect.
To kind of emphasize that runningaway is the Buckley family way.
Uh, we are gonna flash, we're gonnago back to 2004 back, and Mattie
have returned home from whereverit was that they previously lived.
It can't be that far if they've managedto drive there and back to Hershey.

(31:19):
And no sooner do they pull up in thedriveway, then the parents come racing
out into the, uh, the front yard toconfront Maddie because while they were
driving, um, I don't know why he did it.
Actually, I do know why he did it.
'cause he is an asshole.
Um, Doug has called Maddie's parentsto inform them that she's going

(31:39):
to be moving to Boston with him.
Yeah, she, he just called the,
fuck you Duck, duck,
Doug.
Oh, it's better than everytime I was typing his name.
I always kept typing"dough" for some reason
Dough
adding that extra h in.
Yeah.
Um, Maddie is absolutely horrified thatDoug has done this, um, Buck's trying to

(32:05):
be supportive and says to his parents that"You should congratulate Maddie 'cause
she's going to nursing school." Margaretturns around and says, "Oh, don't be
stupid Evan," and you can just see him.
She's a bitch,
like it's deflating and theninflating with anger at the same
time as only like a, a teenager can.

(32:29):
Mm-hmm.
And so he stalks off, grabs hisbike from the garage and runs away.
Well, rides away.
Cycles away.
Yeah.
He cycles away.
He's so angry.
He's like crying and mom's asking, "Whywould you agree to go with him?" And
Maddie's like, "Because I love him!"

(32:51):
Oh, Maddie.
It's all, yeah, happening.
Anyway, we get Evan morphinginto a more present-day version
of him as played by Oliver
Oliver Stark.
It's a really good transition becausewe go from like Baby Evan cycling his
little heart out on his little push bike,slapping at the handlebars, and then all

(33:14):
of a sudden the handlebars that are hisslapping are the handlebars of a bike.
A motorbike,
A motorbike,
a mo, a motorbike.
But he's still angry.
Yeah, he's still angry.
We've jumped, we've, we've jumpedforward like seven or eight years.
He's upgraded the technology,but he's still angry.
He's so angry that he is doingwheelies down the street.

(33:36):
Angry wheelies.
Angry wheelies.
Yeah.
But he's not paying attention to wherehe is going and he is going way too fast.
And when a car backs out into thestreet, um, the screen goes black and
we get like generic brake, squealing,glass shattering, uh, body hitting metal

(33:56):
thumping sounds to indicate that, youknow, it's motorbike versus vehicle.
An accident, yes.
Yeah, but we don't see what happens.
I mean, obviously he survives,but we don't see what happens.
Yeah.
God, I really hope he doesn't die,
and we go back to thefactory fire in the present.
We do.
Buck is charging in, uh, with a sawso he can open the door and there's,

(34:21):
so he can saw shit
a lot of fire inside there.
Um, they're all shouting, you know,trying to work out where to go.
There's massive drums that havemarked glycerin that have like the
big flammable stickers on them.
The um, the hand sanitizer, youknow those big like metal cans that
you get oil in at the supermarket?

(34:42):
Yeah,
yeah.
There's like shelves of thosekind of metal canisters with
hand sanitizer slapped on them.
I'm like, who is selling hand sanitizerand like those big metal canisters?
I don't understand.
But Hen appears to have taken point andonce they get the doors open and they
get the fire knocked down, she sendsChim and Hen in to sort of do recon.

(35:07):
They split up, they go couple ofmeters in and then report back.
Chimney's way is, uh, no good.
Buck's way, he says he wouldn'tcall it clear, but it's clear
enough for them to keep moving.
So they head in in Buck's directionand it turns out to be the correct
direction because they find orBuck finds a door that someone has

(35:28):
stuffed towels under the, um, thegap under the door to keep smoke out.
So they're pretty sure thatthere are gonna be the survivors
that they're looking for.
At least some of them willprobably be behind that door.
And they're correct.
While they're getting them out, Bobbyradios in that he's found seven people, so
they've now got five more people to find.

(35:50):
I think I wasn't counting at thispoint, but I think they found four,
three or four people in that room.
How did they get all the way down to one?
Because at some point they like Buckdoes the maths and works out that
there's one person still missing.
That must be later theyfind some more people.

(36:10):
Oh, here we go.
It's later when, yeah, later.
He says, one team found sevenvictims and others found four,
which there's still someone in here.
Okay.
That's, yeah.
So Bobby found seven.
They found four.
They've still got one guy to go.
So, um, but Bobby also reports thathe and Eddie have been separated from
two of the team that they were with.

(36:32):
So he's sending somebody back out.
Buck says to Hen, "You hear that?
They need help." So he goes off with Hen'sblessing to go and give Bobby some help
with Chim yelling after him, "Be careful!"
Yeah, right.
This is Buck, this is like angry Buck.

(36:54):
He's not gonna be careful.
So, and in this scene, there's alot of cutting back and forward
to the past and to the present,
thankfully.
Thankfully, um, theydo caption all of this.
Yeah.
And it's fairly obvious what's happeninganyway, because it's either in a
hospital or in a building that's on fire.
So

(37:15):
Yes,
either way it's, theflashbacks are pretty obvious.
Um, so we are flashing back to ahospital in 2012 where a nurse is
approaching the nurse's station.
There is a, a male nurse standingbehind said desk who gets their
attention by saying, "Oh, Maddie."And we realize that the nurse that

(37:40):
we've been following is Maddie.
She finished nursing school, shegraduated, she's now working at a nurse.
The other nurse tells her thatthere is some kid in exam room
three that insists on seeing her.
He says that Maddie pinky sweared.
Nurse doesn't know what thatmeans, but he won't leave.

(38:02):
But we know who that is.
We know
who it is!
Well at the mention of pinky swearing,Maddie knows immediately who that is and
she goes racing, um, to exam room threeand pulls aside a curtain and it's buck,
it's baby Buck.
And I don't know exactlywhat they have done.
They've definitely like brushedhis hair down and forward.

(38:22):
Oh, he's got the curls.
Like this is the firsttime I was like, oh my God.
He has curls,
but they're flat curls.
So cute.
And I don't know whether they'veapplied the makeup on him or they've
turned the lighting up or whatever,but they are very much trying to
give this his 21-year-old Buck andI am buying it every single second.
Oh, his eyes look huge, he's just a baby,

(38:44):
he's so cute, he's got this like,
oh, like at this point Oliver isstill like in his thirties, but I
would totally buy that he is only 21.
Yeah.
He's not in... oh, he would've just, yeah.
Turned, what year are we in?
2021?
Yeah.
He would've
just turned 30,
just gone thirty.
But he is not 21 anymore.
But I'm still still buying that.

(39:05):
He's, that he's 21 just by dint ofwhat they've done to his hair, what
they've done with his makeup andthe fact that Oliver has got like
ultra blue eyes in this scene andhe's keeping them very, very wide.
Yeah.
Aw.
The widest eyes ever.
Yeah.
But he's come running to Maddiebecause, uh, he crashed his

(39:26):
motorbike and he needs her help.
He can't go home.
He's fine, like physically.
Yeah.
'cause he got kicked outta school again.
Aw.
Because he used the tuitionmoney to modify said bike, which
is probably now a write off.
And also to bankroll some keggers.

(39:47):
Because, you know, what else do you do?
Nice work Evan.
And he wants to go stay with Maddie.
And Maddie immediately freaks out.
Yeah.
Poor Buck, he just, uh, he doesn'tunderstand why, like, obviously he
doesn't know about Doug, but Maddie can'thave him at home, but he thinks that

(40:09):
she's just, you know, rejecting him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What's really interesting is thatthroughout this entire scene, we've had
a very tight shot of Maddie's face, andafter Buck says, paraphrasing, like, can
I come stay with you and Maddie hesitates,and Buck says, "Oh, it's because of

(40:29):
Doug. Doug hates me." We get a slightlywider shot and we can see that the hand
that Maddie is using to hold a clipboardis in a very thick, very heavy brace.
Hmm.
And so we as the audiencerealize, oh shit.
It's not that Doug hates Buck, it'sthat whatever abuse was going on

(40:50):
previously has now turned physical.
Yeah.
And he's literally hurting Maddie.
And Maddie does not want Buck in thathouse to witness that possibly, also
so that Doug won't hurt Buck as well.
Poor Maddie.
Poor Maddie.
Poor Buck.
Maddie's trying to explain that, youknow, being married, it's complicated.

(41:13):
Um, and so their, their householdsituation is complicated and Evan,
Buck says, "Well, try being at home.
It got so much worse since you left.
Mom and Dad think I'm a total loserand I'm not." He's like reassuring
Maddie, like, "I'm not a loser.
I am gonna be something.
I just don't know whatthat something is yet."
His eyes are so big.

(41:36):
My little baby Buckley,
Maddie promises him that they aregoing to figure out something.
Poor baby.
Yeah,
it's so sad.
It's like the way he says, he tells Maddiethe way that his parents look at him.
They look through him.
Like, no one, no oneshould live like that.

(41:57):
Aw, all right, we're gonnajump back to the fire.
And Buck is he's, he's still trying toget to Bobby, but before he can get very
far, there's like a big explosion and thesomeone over the radio says that the last

(42:17):
explosion took out most of the supports.
So the structural integrity is not good.
But, um, so Mehta says that"Everyone needs to evacuate.
Full evacuation, everyone out." So thisis where Buck says, over the radio, "One
team found seven victims, others got four.
That means there's one personstill in here somewhere." And the

(42:41):
commander guy is like, "Yes, we'reaware of that, but it's too unstable.
You need to leave." And Buck's like,okay, alright, fine, I'll get out.
But he just turns aroundand runs right back in.
He just says, "On the move,"and it's like, yeah, okay.
But it's like he, he, he tells Mehtahe copies and then you see him for a

(43:03):
moment, he's looking at the exit signand then he looks at the fire behind
him and then he looks at the exit sign.
He looks at the fire behind him.
And then when Mehta's like obviouslyunderstanding that Buck is not
immediately complying with his order,says, "Evacuate the building. Now
that's an order," Buck immediatelyturns and runs back into the fire.
Yep.

(43:23):
Of course he does.
It's very much like you are not Bobby.
I don't have to listen to what you say.
Oh,
You're not my real dad.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh dear.
And it's in one of these very, very subtlebut very clever segues, we get back,

(43:45):
turning and running back into the fire.
And then when we, um, come backfrom commercial, Margaret is calling
him reckless and saying that hedoes dangerous things without
giving them a second thought.
She is referring to the motorbike, butit's just so fitting that that's what
she's saying as soon as Buck is liketurned and run back into the fire.
Yeah.

(44:06):
And I do have to note that like allthrough this part, I've got like
Buffy the Vampire Slayers, like onetime "Once More With Feeling" just
playing in my head with Buffy singingabout going back into the fire.
Oh, my head is a funny place sometimes.
Uh, so there, there should basicallymom and dad are shouting at him for

(44:27):
being reckless and doing stupid thingsand "why were you even in that part
of town? Why weren't you in class?"I'm like, wasn't he just riding down
the street that their house was on?
I'm pretty sure he wasriding down the street.
'cause that looked like the sameintersection that he was like riding his
push bike down when he was like a kid.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It could just be that, that'sjust where they filmed.

(44:49):
They like, they had permission to closethat street and they went, well, we need
a couple of, um, scenes like with, uh,Oliver on a bike, so let's just do it on
this street while we've got permission.
Yeah.
Just while we're here.
Yeah.
Anyway, basically they found outthat he's out of school again and,
um, but before he has to explainhimself, uh, Maddie shows up and

(45:13):
saved by the older sister.
Yeah.
Like, she doesn't come in or anything,so I'm guessing this is after the part
where the parents have cut her off soshe doesn't even wanna see them, but he
just runs out to the car and off they go.
So they, they can't have gone toofar because Buck is in the middle of
telling her that the timing was kindof awesome, that, that they were just

(45:36):
asking him about school and stuff
Yeah.
But Maddie stops the car inthe middle of the street.
Is Maddie back from Boston then?
She must be.
She's back in town.
Yeah, she's in hospital.
That hospital that she'sworking is Hershey.
Oof.
So she's really that close.
Yeah, far out.

(45:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So she gets out of the car and shetells Evan to get out and then she
gives him the keys to the Jeep andum, you know, tells him that this
is your, your way out of here.
And he's like, "You're giving methe Jeep?" I'm like, oh, is this
the same Jeep that he has later?

(46:18):
I guess.
Yeah.
Yes.
Oh, so do you remember um, whenEddie bought that brand new car
with his like fight club money?
Yes.
Yeah.
And we were talking about um, likecar sponsorship 'cause that was quite
clearly 9-1-1 brought to you by GeneralMotors and we were saying that Buck
was never going to get a car upgrade?

(46:39):
This was why, because the Jeep that he wasdriving was the Jeep that Maddie gave him.
Aw.
Uh, so he thinks it's amazing thatshe's giving him the Jeep, but he
has no idea where he is going to go.
Maddie says it doesn't matter.
The point is for him to go as far away ashe can and to be happy and he's looking a
little suspicious at this point and says," 'cause you know that's what you did?"

(47:02):
She's like, "Yeah, yeah,that's exactly what I did."
Yeah, that's totally what happened.
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
What I did, um, Bucksees right through her.
I was like, come on Maddie,you don't have to pretend.
I know things aren't good with Doug.
He's so perceptive.
Doesn't know the full
sometimes.
He's so perceptive.
No, but he's perceptive.

(47:23):
He just didn't have the full information.
He knew something was up with Doug.
Maddie just didn't let himknow exactly what was going on.
But when she tries to deny thatanything's wrong, Buck says,
"Why don't you come with me?
No more dad, no more mom, no more Doug.
Just you and me against the world."And when Maddie sort of says,

(47:43):
"well, where are we even gonna go?"
And Buck says, "it doesn'tmatter. The point is just to go,"
yep, "I did just say that, didn't I?"
But it's so tempting and,and eventually she says, yes.
She makes a decision.
"Yes, yes. I will go with you. Let'sget the hell out of here together."

(48:05):
Oh.
But back in the present, Buck is infact not getting the hell out of there.
He is getting further the hell inthere because he's gone further into
the fire to find that one person that
The fire Yeah, the fire.
Yeah.
Yeah, if they're not gonna put thesegues in, I'm gonna put them in myself.
Uh, but he is, he, he's shoutingand like looking for people and

(48:27):
he hears someone hitting somemetal and, um, he finds a guy,
uh, he does find a guy.
He finds a guy and it turns out to be,uh, Samba Schutte, I don't know if that's
how you pronounce his name, but Yes.
He's, he's from, um, Our Flag Means Death.
I didn't realize it was himbecause he is got a mask on

(48:49):
because he's wearing a mask.
But later I'm like, hisvoice sounds really familiar.
And um, and it wasn't till the second timeI watched it and I saw his name actually
come up in the credits at the beginning.
You know how they have theguest stars sometimes in the
mm-hmm.
In the, in the titles.
So in my, ah,
the actor's name is Samba,or the character in our
flag means death is Samba?

(49:10):
No.
The character... oh my God.
Now you're gonna, it's been solong since I watched any of it.
Uh, I'm gonna totally gonna look it up.
I never watched it.
I haven't watched the second season.
You should watch it,
to be fair.
Yeah.
Look,
I have a thing about Australian and NewZealand accents in television shows.
Irony.
Yes.

(49:30):
But I can't do it.
It's, it's very silly.
It's extremely silly, but, so good.
So good.
Um, his character's name is Roach.
Okay.
Um, and he is just very funny.
But, um, yeah, in, so this, thiswas before... Our Flag Means

(49:51):
Death came out after, let me see.
Like it started in 2022.
Yeah.
Yeah, 2022 was when it came out.
So I guess around the same timeprobably when this was, um,
shooting then, or just, just after.
So yeah, he, he's like slightlyfunny in this, in this episode.

(50:14):
Um, because he is an actual comedian.
Yeah,
he's very funny consideringthe situation that he's in.
He's so, yeah.
It's great.
Yes,
because, um, buck asks him if he'shurt and he says, "no, I'm, I'm lost,
not hurt, I'm lost. There's too muchsmoke." Um, Buck reassures him that
it's okay and he's gonna get him out.

(50:35):
He asks the man if he can breathe andthe man points at the, like the N95
respirator he's wearing and going, "Thisis helping. The fire's not though," Sir,
really
so Buck kind looks around, butthere's just fire all around them.
And
yeah, every way that he goes,he gets blocked by fire.

(50:55):
Yeah, he's, he's lost,which is what the man says.
He goes, "Oh, so we're both lost now."
Yeah.
Yeah.
So another quick jump back again to2012, and this is obviously the next
morning or something, the next day.
And, uh, Evan arrives at thehospital, but Omar sort of grabs

(51:17):
him as he goes past, which is thenurse that's Maddie's workmate.
And, um, he goes, "Evan, Evan." AndEvan says, "oh, have you seen Maddie?
I was supposed to pick herup, but she's not here.
She's not answering her phone." AndOmar just hands him a note and says
"She left this for you," and sheleft him a letter to tell him

(51:40):
that she can't leave with him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, once again, Buck's feeling abandoned.
Abandoned.
Um, yeah.
So the, the note from Maddie says,"Dear Evan, I'm sorry to tell
you this way, but I can't leavewith you for one crazy minute.
I really thought I could do it.
But then reality set in and I realizedthat my life is here, but yours isn't.

(52:04):
It's still ahead of you,and I want you to find it.
Find the thing that makes you happy,the people that make you feel loved.
This is your time now, Evan, go find yourplace in the world and never look back."
I'm pretty sure Buck stopped reading atthe, my Life is Here, but Your Isn't Line.
Yeah.
Um, and yeah, he, he's,

(52:25):
he's read that and just gone, oh yeah.
So I, I, she doesn't want me either.
Yeah.
Like, my parents don't want me.
Maddie doesn't want me either.
And that explains the, he likeliterally crumples the note.
Tosses it in the bin andstorms out of the ward.
Scaring one of the guys, one ofscaring, one of the extras who's

(52:45):
sitting in the opposite room.
Yeah, that looked like a really naturalreaction actually, when he barged
through the doors, he's like, oh.
Because he literally like pushes thedoors open, the, the little venetian
blinds on the window starts swinging.
I'm sure that they told this extra lookI just, we just need you to sit in this
chair, pretend that you're waiting.
Um, and the extra sort of sittingthere going like, this door's here.
No one's even gonna see me.

(53:06):
I'm not gonna get, ohshit, there's an actor!
Wait, where's he going?
But back in the present, he's stilltrying to get outta the factory.
Uh, they see an exterior wall and theyhope that it's equipped with a door.
Good job, Roach.
Um, the fire flares up and they see likea gantry thing that they, they're gonna

(53:29):
have to climb and walk across to get to adoor, um, or at least to get to the wall.
And Buck says, "oh, do you?
We're gonna have to walk here.
Do you think you can make it?" And Saleh,who's the, the name of the guy says,
"I would like nothing more than to makeit." it's like, all right, let's do it.
But

(53:50):
he is doing his best.
There are more explosions asthey're, as they're going over
it and they go flying basically.
Yes.
'cause apparently the explosions, whichis just, you know, the sanitizer and the
glycerin, um, igniting is enough to ripthe catwalk, gantry clean in half, um,

(54:13):
and send Buck flying into the side of agiant metal vat to the point that you can
hear metal or metal ringing as he likehis head or his mask makes impact and.
He goes dropping intothe commercial break.
Ouch.
We come back to commercial back in2012, back at Maddie's hospital.

(54:35):
Um, I think this is like myfavorite sequence from this episode.
Yeah.
Oh, this is great.
Yeah.
Cause Maddie
It's adorable!
Comes... What?
It's adorable.
Did you say it's horrible?
It's adorable.
I thought you said it's horrible.
It's horrible.
Yeah.
All I heard was the bull sound.
I'm like, what?
No, adorable.
Ellen's like, fuck, baby Buck.

(54:59):
Uh, so Maddie comes to the nurse'sstation and Omar tells her that, um,
the mail room sent up like a bunchof mail, including a postcard that's
from her brother, and it's a postcardfrom Georgia with the catchphrase
Welcome to Adventure on the front.
Um, so she flips it over, um, andstarts reading and we get Buck

(55:20):
doing the voiceover of what he'swritten on the back of the postcard.
Although it's not what he has written,it's what somebody in props has
written because it's actually legible.
Yeah, the handwriting is so neat.
They have not let Oliveranywhere near these postcards.
It's
not after the, um, whatever thefuck the graduation thing was.

(55:43):
Um, so the first postcard, um, Buck saysthat he's done being mad at Maddie mostly.
Uh, he's been bouncing up and down theEast coast picking up some odd jobs.
He hasn't found his place yet, whichI retract my earlier statement that he
stopped reading after Maddie told him,
oh, there you go.
Yeah.
That his place wasn't with her becauseshe does go on in that letter to say that

(56:06):
she hopes he finds his place somewhere.
So he's telling her hehasn't found his place yet.
Um, but he's met some cool people,but he misses her and he's sending
the, the postcards to the hospitalbecause he doesn't trust Doug,
not to toss them in the trash.
Um, and then finishes the postcardwith, have you left him yet?

(56:28):
So, and Maddie's face as she's readingthis and as the voiceover does this
like face journey where she's like,she's like really fond and then she's
really, you know, worried and thenshe's like, gets to the end and she's
like, oh no, I haven't left him yet.
Like, whatever.
And we do see that when she slips thepostcard into her pocket, um, there

(56:48):
are scratches on the back of her hand.
So no, she definitely hasn't left Doug.
And things are not getting any better.
Hmm.
But the, the needle drop for thiswhole sort of montage scene, um,
is this song called "One of TheseThings First" by Nick Drake.
And when I looked up to find out what thelyrics were, genius lyrics tells me that
the song is a, is a desperate song aboutwhat dreams the singer could have been.

(57:14):
He had the potential for so many things,but realized none of them, he dreams of
being capable, but he doesn't know how.
Oh,
and if that's not the perfectsong to encapsulate Buck in this
moment, I don't know what is.
Yeah.
After Georgia, Maddie gets a postcard fromVirginia Beach and Buck tells her that
he's finished bartending school and he isthe coolest mixologist in Virginia Beach.

(57:40):
And he met a girl who likes to surf.
So he started learning to surfand he really likes the ocean.
Maybe it's 'cause he nevergot to see it as a kid.
Um, when he is out there, it just feelslike there's nothing but possibility.
It's like, oh.
But then the next update is from Floridasaying, uh, yeah, that thing with a girl
didn't work out, so he stopped surfing.

(58:01):
The thing with the girlseriously did not work out.
So I don't know what happened there.
But, um,
but he's working construction now.
Um, and this postcard comes with a photoof buck in a high vis vest with a safety
helmet standing by a pile of plum.
Aw, that's really cute.
Because he is working, because he isworking with guys who frame houses.

(58:25):
Um, and so he's just boppingaround Florida following the work.
Yeah.
And he got someone to takea photo of him at work.
Yes.
Someone take a photo of me for my sister.
Yeah.
Yes.
But then it's cute because he'swritten this on a postcard, but
then he is put the postcard anda photo in an envelope to post,
uh, he ends up in Flagstaff, Arizona,and then he got to California.

(58:50):
So I don't know why he is tellingher about California when the
postcard is from Arizona, but Okay.
Um, we got to, he, when he gotto California, he wanted to try
and become a Navy seal, whichwe have heard about before.
Um, and you don't have to enlist.
And she like, he likes the ocean.
"I mean, these, these are the guyswho got Bin Laden, the baddest

(59:11):
of bad asses, right? Who ya?"
Um, and then the next postcard,Omar's reading it because,
oh, I love this.
And he just, like, Maddie walksin and Omar just looks up from the
postcard and he goes, "He quit theseals." And Maddie's like, "Are you
supposed to be reading those?" Andhe goes, "I'm living vicariously.

(59:33):
And he sent another pic.
Is he gonna be an Indian next?
'cause I feel like he's working hisway through the Village People."
And it's the cutest photo ever becauseBuck sitting on the bonnet, which is
hood for Americans, um, of the Jeepholding a lasso and wearing a cowboy hat.

(59:53):
Oh yeah.
He's working on a dude ranch.
He's working on a dude ranch.
He got all the way out to big sky country.
Yeah, he's in Montana.
It's so cute.
Um, oh, it's so cute.
And I mean, Omar's not wrong because he'sbeen a construction worker and a cowboy.
Um, if you count the seals, then,I mean, the original village

(01:00:18):
people was a, it was kind of army.
So if we just go like genericmilitary, that's like three of them.
Um,
the only one that'sleft, he's been a biker.
If you, he was a biker because hehad a motorbike, so he was on a bike.
If you count LAFD, then as like,just like first responder, that

(01:00:38):
kind of correlates to the cop.
Um.
I mean, yeah, he's, he'slike, he's five outta six.
Yeah.
He's getting there and nobody'sgonna do the Native American anymore
because, you know, that's just racist.
Um, I did not realize that thevillage people were meant to be

(01:00:59):
like gay sexual fantasy archetypes.
I found that out today.
Were they, were they meant to be ordid they just become that through
Yes.
Like culture?
Nope, they were put togetherbecause, because the biker
was like a leather daddy.
He was always intended tobe a leather daddy, and they
recruited from the gay district.
Okay.
Beautiful.

(01:01:19):
Brilliant.
Excellent.
Anyway, so, uh, Cowboy Buck, uh,working on a dude ranch, um, misses
the ocean to the point where Maddie's,the next postcard Maddie receives
is from Pacific City, Oregon.
And Buck telling her that hemade it back to the ocean.
But it's too cold in Oregon.
So he's thinking of checking out Peru.

(01:01:41):
And Maddie's just like, why Peru?
And then Buck answers the questionthat he didn't realize that
his sister was gonna be asking.
Uh, because one of his ranch handbuddies tends a bar down in Peru.
So he is going to use hismixology teachings, um, and
become a bartender again.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.

(01:02:01):
Um, whereas like, funny how lifecomes full circle and Maddie's
like "More like going in circles."
It's like, ah,
I mean, she's not wrong.
She's got a big pile of postcards there.
Yeah.
Does feel like he's going round.
Yeah.
We didn't mention, but every time we cutto Maddie reading a postcard of bucks,

(01:02:21):
there is something else wrong with her.
There is a a different bruise.
A different mark.
More evidence that Doughas been abusing her.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So there's like a, a darkside to this humorous montage.
Yes.
But then we get possibly the best, uh,part of this whole thing, which is we cut

(01:02:44):
to what Buck is getting up to in Peru.
We don't get a postcard from Peru.
We get Buck in Peru.
We get in Peru.
He looks so good.
And oh my god.
He looks like he's havingthe time of his life.
He looks like Malibu Ken.
He looks like Malibu Ken.
He's got the frosted tips.
I don't know what the fuckthey've done with his hair.

(01:03:05):
He is got like a pooka shellnecklace and a Hawaiian shirt.
They've slapped the fake tan on him.
His job is cocktail.
Yes.
Oh my little like, oh my God.

(01:03:25):
So good.
They had, the costume departmenthad way too much fun with this.
Yeah.
Um, but they're watch, he's watchingsome firefighters on the tv.
He's watching Backdraft in Spanish.
Yeah.
Okay.
So yeah, big firefighter moviehappening in the background in Spanish.
Um, I just gotta say as well, soobviously like he's been on a dude

(01:03:48):
ranch, he's been like, you know, goingup and down the coast in his Jeep.
I'm just real sad for him that hedidn't get to fuck his way through
all the boys that he met because like,
how do you know he didn't fuckhis way through all the boys?
If he didn't, I'm very sad for him.
Hopefully he did.

(01:04:10):
I'm sure there were many, many, aconfusing encounter through all of
his, through all of his adventures,especially on the dude ranch,
right?
Got himself a little BrokebackMountain action going on there.
But he, he's not to this day quite surewhat happened or what it all means.

(01:04:31):
It was, it was totally normal.
It was just, dude bros.
It's, it's totally straightwhen you're in the dude ranch.
In
the same sleeping bag.
Yeah, it's fine.
Yeah, they said it was normal.
It's fine.
Bless
a dude comes to the bar.
Speaking of dudes.
Um,
yeah, Connor
Orders another beer.
Connor,
uh, sorry.
I believe this is the friend thathe was on the dude ranch with.

(01:04:55):
I think so, yeah.
Do they actually sayhis name at any stage?
Or is this just,
um,
are we allowed to refer,refer to him by name?
I'm ref.
Hmm.
Do we?
Yeah,
we do.
Like Alice and I do.
We do, yeah.
Oh, we see him again sometime.
Yes.
Because 9-1-1 love to recycle characters.

(01:05:16):
Okay.
Yeah.
So, yes.
Um, I did include his name inthis because I knew who he was.
Um.
But technically, no, we can't becausewe never actually find out his name.
He's just a guy.
Um,
he's just a guy.
He,
he's just Connor.
He's, he says

(01:05:37):
he's just beach.
Yeah, beach.
He's just beer.
His job is beer,
he's just beer.
His job is beach.
He asks, tells Buck that.
It's like, it's cool.
So cool that it comes from Hershey becausethat's where chocolate was invented, man.
And then Buck, well actually is him.
Yeah.
"Well actually chocolate was inventeddown here in ancient Mexico." um, but

(01:06:03):
Connor's, like, " I don't care."
Connor sees a pretty girl and he'sjust like, his attention is on
boobs and ass and he is no longerlistening to anything Buck is saying.
Yeah.
Now his job is ogling.
Interestingly, Buck was notogling, Buck was too interested
in his like weird facts.
Yeah.
Um.
Yeah,

(01:06:23):
hashtag adhd.
Um, so Connor says to Buck, "Youshould come to LA with us. We've got
this bitching craftsman in Arcadia."Um, and the camera sort of pans over
to this bunch of guys over at thetable laughing, having a good time.

(01:06:44):
Um, and Buck asks like, "Doyou guys all live together?"
And Connor's like, "Yeah, it's kind oflike a family. You go, we go, like the
movie," which it's a movie referenceand Buck does not get it because we
have canonically established that theBuckley's were deprived of popular
culture and don't know anything.
Honestly, I'm pretty sure theBuckleys just didn't have a tv.

(01:07:07):
Maybe.
Yeah.
Which is why he kept going out andhurting himself 'cause he was so bored.
But it turns out that the movie thatConnor is referencing is Backdraft because
he points at the TV behind Buck and.
Buck turns around just in time forthe characters on TV to say, albeit
in Spanish 'cause it's dubbed.
Um, "you go, I go." and so Buck turnsback and goes, "So tell me about

(01:07:35):
LA," which then brings me to thequestion, are these the frat boys
that Buck was living in with in seasonone before he moves in with Abby?
I choose to believe yes.
Could have been.
Although this, that wasa number of years later.
Like
not that many.
What year is this?
2015? Yeah.
No.
So yeah.
Yeah.
It would've been only a few years later.

(01:07:57):
Yeah.
Talk about coming full circle.
Coming full circle.
Everything's making sense now.
Mm.
Um,
we're connecting the dots!
So We are, and it's not just withred string in one of those weird,
like, serial killer murder boards.
Um.
So in a very subtle segue, Buck says,"uh, so tell us about LA." And then

(01:08:20):
when we cut to him and the factoryfire, it's a closeup of an unconscious
buck focused on the Los Angeleswritten across the front of his helmet.
And it's such a, um,in typical Buck style.
He, he's had his, like, he's hadhis bells rung from being yeeted
into the, the large metal vat.

(01:08:41):
So he is a little bit disorientated.
He's sort of very slow to sort of wake up.
But as soon as he sees Saleh, heimmediately, full attention, full focus.
He's up and ready to go.
'cause somebody needs him.
Yeah.
And poor Saleh, he's like, "Thank youfor attempting to save me. It appears
this vat had a different plan," and thevat has fallen on him and onto his legs

(01:09:07):
basically, and he can't get out of it.
Buck tries to move it,but it's not moving.
And then he is like,"it's also very heavy."
Like I don't, I don't know if this like,if he was always meant to be such a
dry character, that was unintentionallyhilarious, but it's just turned out
really funny in such a heavy episode.

(01:09:30):
Um,
yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, so yes, the vet is very heavybecause Buck can't lift it by himself.
He tries wedging his fire actsunder as to get a little bit
leverage that's not working.
Um, he tells Saleh that he will,he will get Saleh out of there.
Um, and Saleh just says, "Well, you'regonna have to hurry because the fire

(01:09:50):
is getting closer." Meanwhile, the restof the 118 having followed orders, have
evacuated the building and got their,um, various, uh, patients handed off,
and Chim is doing a headcount and herealizes that Buck is not with Bobby.
Oh.
He's like, what the fuck has he done now?
So ask Bobby, where's Buck?

(01:10:12):
And Bobby is like, he, "Isent him in there with you.
I could be asking you the samequestion." And Hen's like, "We
sent him to you." It's, it's like,who had their eyes on the baby?
Nobody had their eyes on the baby.
And now the baby is gone.
Which, which one have youhad Buck as your buddy?
Which one come up,
Eddie.
Eddie, what you done with him?

(01:10:35):
Wasn't Eddie's fault this time.
Um,
this time,
In perfect timing, Buck comesover the radio, uh, a radio
over to the incident commander.
Um, and the incident commander isjust like, "Buckley, did you ignore
my direct order to evacuate?"
And Bobby's like, "Yeah,he does that sometimes".
Yeah, it's just like, yep.
And that's not me paraphrasing.

(01:10:56):
That is literally how,that is literally the line.
And that's literally howPeter Krause says it.
Like, yeah, he does that sometimes.
He does that sometimes.
So.
Buck reports in that he'sfound the last victim.
Um, but he's pretty much, he's stuckand he could like really use some
sprinklers, really use some water backup.
But they don't have thesprinklers online yet.

(01:11:20):
So the incident commander deploysa, um, I think a hose team.
He calls 'em Rick team.
Uh, there's a bunch of guys witha hose suddenly go running off in
the direction, in a direction, andreassures Buck that a rescue team is
coming, he tells Buck to stay still.
And Buck's like, yeah, I'm,I'm not going anywhere.
And just at that moment there is amassive explosion with like huge fireballs

(01:11:44):
coming outta pretty much every openspace that there is in the factory.
Yeah.
And everyone's aghast.
We get, we do get, flashback now.
Um, just in case we wanted to find outwhat happened to Buck, we can't know yet
because we have to have a flashback first.
Yes.
Um, they love doing that.

(01:12:05):
Uh, so, okay, so this is a, a flashbackto something that we've seen before.
Amazingly
slightly extended version of it, but yes.
Yeah.
So Buck turns up at the 118 firehouse andhe's writing like we get the voiceover
as he is walking in, um, because he iswriting another postcard apparently.

(01:12:26):
"California is amazing.
I think you'd like it here.
It's a hard place to feel sad.
Maybe it's all the sunshine."That's a nice thought.
Um, "today's my first day as aprobationary firefighter, so wish
me luck." and then as he walksin, um, we see his uniform like
spot that says Buckley on it.

(01:12:46):
And he says, "There were threeother Evans in my class. So everyone
calls me Buck now. I kinda like it."
And then they literally cut and pastein the scene from "Bobby Begins Again"
where Buck shows up at the kitchen andthey razz him up by pretending that
they don't know who Captain Nash is.
Yeah.
It feels mean this time because weknow how much shit Buck's been through.

(01:13:09):
I know, poor Buck.
See?
It's like, come on,
you says, you say here in the notesthat Background Firefighter is there?
Background firefighteris sitting next to Chim!
Background firefighter!
Did we not know who backgroundfirefighter was last time?
Or we just didn't notice?
I think
we knew who he was, but I'm wonderingwhether like they've, we are getting

(01:13:31):
a different cut of the of the scene.
So it's slightly wider.
So we're actually seeing who issitting next to Chim at the table?
I don't know, but it's verymuch background firefighter.
For a second I thought it wasCaptain Gerrard and I was about
to freak out and realised no, it'snot Gerrard, it's just another,
no, he's gone by this stage.
Old man with a, anotherolder man with a, a mustache.

(01:13:54):
But yeah, background firefighter.
Well after that quick flashbackthat we'd already seen, which
like is so nice because it meansthat he's finally found his place.
Right?
I don't, I don't think Buck knew that yet.
But, um, you know, after all thesearching he's been doing the last
couple of years before that, it'snice to see him finally get there.

(01:14:17):
Yeah.
So back in the present, uh,there, the Buck and Saleh are
okay after the explosion Okay.
Is a relative term.
Relative to Yes.
Like, are they?
Saleh said.
He said, okay.
They survive the explosion.
Yeah.
Like Buck literally threw himselfon top of Saleh to use his turnout

(01:14:37):
to protect him from the, the flames.
And he, he gets up and he starts lookingaround and I, I do love this little
nod, uh, 'cause Saleh asks like, "Whatare you looking for?" And Buck goes,
"I was fire marshal once, remember,I remember the rules and regulations.
They're the factory should have fireextinguishers." Um, and he manages

(01:14:58):
to find one 'cause he's gonna useit to like, try and hold back the
fire for that little bit longer.
Um, unfortunately, Saleh is startingto lose his battle with the smoke
and he's struggling to breathe.
So Buck takes off his O2 masks and puts iton Saleh, and the guy goes, "What if I'm

(01:15:19):
wearing this how are you gonna breathe?"And Buck says, "I'm just gonna hold it."
Yeah.
Like what?
This is, this is not trying to hold,to go to the toilet before, like you
...This is breathing, Buckley.
Need to breathe, Buck.
Yeah.
You can't hold your breath for that long.
No.
We get a nice little action sequencewhere Buck like swings himself up and

(01:15:41):
slides along the fallen catwalk toget to the fire extinguisher quicker.
Looks very cool.
Um, and the fire extinguisherthankfully works and he's able to,
um, put out a little bit of the firefor like five seconds and then he is
extinguished all of the extinguisher.

(01:16:01):
Mm-hmm.
And it barely, barelyput a dent in the fire.
Yeah.
At this point, s is like,yeah, okay, we're dying.
I'm dead.
And he gives up, he loses consciousnessand Buck looks like he's seconds
away from giving up himself.
When the sprinklers finally kick in.

(01:16:22):
And water starts raining down.
Yeah.
And Buck's like, no.
Okay.
They haven't given up on me.
I'm not going to give up on Saleh.
So he grabs his ax, he ties a rope toit, he uses it as a slingshot, throws
the rope over a beam that's up abovehim, ties it to, uh, puts a carabiner

(01:16:42):
on it, puts the carabiner on the, thevat that's still across Saleh's legs
to make a makeshift pulley system sohe can try and pull the vat off Saleh.
But it is just far too heavy.
And even then, him, like almosthorizontal, lying fully on the ax.

(01:17:03):
He can't shift it.
Yeah.
And he's like yelling,but it's, it's silent.
We can't hear because this beautifulmusic playing over the top.
Yeah.
And then just as he's about to give upagain and another firefighter appears.
He grabs onto the rope and startspulling and then three more firefighters

(01:17:26):
appear and Buck looks over his shoulderat the sudden, sort of slack on the
rope to realize that the 118 havejoined him and they're helping him...
his family!
pull the vat off Saleh and it works.
Buck couldn't do it on hisown, but with his family,
they've all got his back.
They're able to lift the vatoff, Chim peels off to pull

(01:17:47):
Saleh out from under the vat.
They'll make it out
and they all make it out.
Next thing we see Buck, they've managedto get them out of the factory and Buck
is sitting in the back of the ambulance, Iassume, because Hen was checking him over.
He looks rough, like his eyes are allred and he is like covered in soot.

(01:18:08):
Well, he has been wandering aroundwithout his mask and respirator.
Yeah.
So he is been, you know,inhaling smoke for a while.
Yeah.
Um, Bobby's trying to make him feelbetter because he's saying he got
lost and he didn't know where he was.
And Bobby's like, "That place is a maze."
I do appreciate that Bobby had everyright to like chew him out and yell

(01:18:30):
at him about like being an idiot, butinstead he's like trying to reassure
Buck and make him feel better.
Yeah.
He's had a rough week.
Even Hen's, like "no one was surprisedyou stayed in there." And then Buck
goes, "I almost gave up if you guyshadn't come in, then..." Hen's like,
"But we did and we always will."

(01:18:52):
It's like, aw,
it's family.
And, and then Athena shows up simplybecause Angela Bassett is contracted
to appear in like every single episode.
They're like, oh, fuck with her.
Give, give Angela anythingto do this episode.
Get her in.
And, um, Buck looks terrified fora moment because he is like, oh no.

(01:19:15):
Mom's here to chew me out too.
Yeah.
Mom's gonna yell at me.
Oh, I'm in trouble.
Like dad was playing, like dad was playinggood cop and here is the literal bad cop.
Yeah.
But she's not, she's really, she's reallynice to, she's probably the nicest that
she's been to him for ages actually.
She's usually chewinghim out for something

(01:19:36):
like, do you reckon Bobby textedher on when she was on the way
over and was like, be nice to Buck.
I know.
I think it's, he's hada real shit day, okay.
I think it's just the way, becauseAthena walks over and Bobby like
immediately makes a beeline tosort of cut her off and he's like,
"Firefighter Buckley here. Pulled outthe very last victim," and the way he's
talking to her, it's very much like.

(01:19:57):
He did a good thing.
Okay.
Be nice thing
he a good thing.
Like nodding.
Nodding yes.
Like he did a good, he was good.
Right?
Um,
Athena, god bless her, immediatelypicks up on this and is like, "Yes,
of course. He, of course he wentback in to pull out the very last
victim." And Buck is still moping.

(01:20:17):
He's like, "Yeah, but then everyoneelse had to come in and pull me
out." And Athena tells him, "well,I'm sure that whoever you saved
is just glad you were being Buck."
Buck's like, "I don't evenknow what that means."
To which Athena tells him, "Itmeans that you never give up.
That's what being Buck means to me."

(01:20:38):
Yeah.
And it's, it's so sweet.
Yeah.
This is why we keep saying that Bobbyand Athena are Buck's real parents.
'cause now that you've met his parents.
Yeah.
Compared to them, Bobby andAthena treat him so much better.
Yes.
Yep.
And actually appear to care about him.

(01:20:59):
They're encouraging.
All right.
So the, the next scene must be alittle bit later, the next shift
maybe, or a couple of days later.
Bobby and Buck arrive at the 118 station,um, and Eddie is there waiting for them.
And Bobby says that he's got a cleanbill of health from the doctors.

(01:21:21):
So, and then Eddie, like, as Bobbydisappears, he goes "Show off," to Buck.
Eddie's been pacing backwards andforwards waiting for them to come back.
Yeah.
Um, but also he's been pacingoutside because he doesn't wanna
be inside with Buck's mom and dad,
pretty much.
Yeah.
Because they're inside waiting for him.

(01:21:44):
They are upstairs in the loft.
And so Buck very hesitantly, goesupstairs and approaches them.
Um, it's so awkward.
He's trying to be so polite.
I'm guessing he never apologized aftersort of yelling at them the last time he
spoke to them after going off at them.
Yeah.

(01:22:04):
Which they so rightly deserved.
Yes.
Um, he, he says, you know, I hopeyou weren't waiting too long.
And his father says, "No.
The, the other firefighterswere very kind.
We got to hear a lot of stories aboutyou." And Margaret says, "They seem to
like you." I'm like, yeah, no shit lady.
Just 'cause you didn't like him doesn'tmean that nobody else likes him.
Oh,
yeah.

(01:22:25):
Like, well, you happen tohave a very lovable son.
Yeah.
Just because you never saw that.
Sorry.
I really do not like Margaret Buckley.
I'm getting that.
I guess,
like, you're getting that from me,or you're seeing, you're watching
Margaret Buckley and you understand?
No, she's, she's pretty awful.
I think she's like deeply,deeply disturbed as, as a person.

(01:22:48):
Yes.
And it's really coming out as just beinga big meanie to everybody basically.
Yes.
But anyway, Buck apologizes to them.
Like they sit down at a tableand Buck's like, "I'm sorry about
Daniel," finally, now that he knows,
that's it.
Like if he'd known the whole time

(01:23:10):
Yeah.
He could have like, ugh,he would've understood.
Yeah.
I mean, it's not really something thatyou wanna tell a kid, a little kid.
Like he, they could have told himthat he had a brother who died.
Like that's, I think importantfor him to probably know, but.
The, the rest of it that the reason thathe was born was to be a donor is probably

(01:23:33):
not something you want a kid to know.
but like, but not even just likesay like, yeah, we had a, you
had a brother who died and that'swhy Mom and Dad are so detached.
Like at least it had make sense.
Like there's so much that like now I'molder and I understand like the stuff
that my parents went through when theywere like my age, like early twenties, I'm

(01:23:56):
like, oh, that's why they're like that.
And I give them more grace now.
But he didn't have that opportunitybecause they never told him.
Yeah.
And they never allowed Maddie to tell him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's sort of hard to know when, likemaybe we can talk about this at the end,
but it's hard to know when is the righttime to tell a child something like that.

(01:24:18):
So, but I mean, they didn'ttreat him well anyway, so no.
Anyway, they try to, now theytry to, uh, say to him that,
you know, we never blamed you.
None of it was your fault.
And he's still like, I stillwish I could have done more.
It's like, bug stop.
Stop being like that.

(01:24:39):
Yeah.
Um, his dad calls him Evan, and he's like,"No, people who know me call me Buck."
Yeah.
Yes.
And then, and his mom actually sayssomething nice for once and she says,
"You were born to save someone andthat's what you do every day. We are so
proud of you." It's like, oh, finally

(01:25:01):
she says something worth saying.
Yeah,
I don't buy it, no, I don't buy it.
But it's such a nice sentiment,
but I don't buy it because there'snothing in the previ, like nothing
prior to this scene that makes mebelieve that they are proud of him.
No.
Coming out of her mouth thatI think that's, that's bad.

(01:25:21):
But what I mean is that he was born tosave someone and that's what he does.
Oh, that part.
Oh, that's,
that's a, is really nice.
Yes.
That's a, that's a beautiful sentiment.
Yes.
Um, but Margaret acknowledging thatand saying that they are proud of him.
No, don't buy that at all.
Yeah.
It's a weird kind of back flip from them.
Like not long ago they werekind of mad about everything.

(01:25:44):
I have a theory about it.
I'll wait till the end of theepisode and I'll tell you my theory.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
So back goes from this meetingwith his parents down to the locker
room where Chim is getting changed.
Um, and obviously things are betterbetween the two of them because.
Chim checks in on Buck and heis like, does that, "did that go
okay?" And Buck's like, "Yeah.

(01:26:05):
Yeah, I think so." But even ashe's saying, yeah, I think so.
He's just walked like face first intohis locker and it's just closed his eyes
and it does not look at all like he isokay or it is okay or anything is okay.
Oh, poor Buck.
Uh, but Chim does have an ulterior motivefor checking in on Buck because he needs

(01:26:28):
things to be okay with Maddie as well.
Yep.
Um, and Buck's like, yeah, I mightbe okay with, with parents, but
I, I'm not okay with Maddie still.
Yeah.
He's feeling very betrayed
and Chim tries to mediate the situation.
Um, and Buck reiterates that Maddieshould have told him about Daniel,

(01:26:53):
about family, about everything.
And Chim says that she didn't wantBuck to think that he wasn't loved
and Buck's like, "But I wasn't."
Hmm.
Chim's like, no, "Maddie lovedyou," and Buck counters with "She
sent me away, she handed me the keysto the car and sent me on the way

(01:27:15):
I needed her and she wasn't there.
She sent me out of her life."
Oh, it's so heartbreaking,
It hurts so much.
And you can just, you can see, see Chimsort of staring at him for a second.
Like, what the fuck are you talking about?
And then realizes what he's talking about.
He is like "The, the Jeep. That's whatyou're talking about?" Um, because

(01:27:38):
while Buck might've read the notethat Maddie left him when he went to
pick her up and she wasn't there andthen booked it out of the hospital and
not looked back, um, Maddie explainedmore of the situation to Chim.
We see what happened after BuckStormed out of the hospital,

(01:28:00):
which was that Maddie was at thehospital, but she was completely
black and blue and covered in blood.
Yeah.
Because Buck had, uh, Doug had foundout that she was going to leave and
beat her within an inch of her life.
Yeah.
Oh
and Maddie didn't want Buck to ever know,
Maddie didn't want Buck to see that.

(01:28:24):
Yeah.
Omar tries to, uh, tell her like, "Maybeyour brother could help, like you should
have gone with him." And she's like, "No.
He, he can never know,"
still don't understand why.
Yeah.
I mean, maybe she wasprotecting him from Doug
and was embarrassed probably too.
Yeah.
It's just, it's just one morething that nobody told Buck.

(01:28:48):
Mm-hmm.
But I mean, we've already dealt with that.
That's fine.
Doug is dead.
We're.
We're moving on.
Yeah.
Then we cut back to the Madneyapartment where Maddie is cleaning
in an attempt to calm herself whileshe's waiting for Chim to come
back from work and talking to Buck.

(01:29:09):
Um, because as soon as Chim walks in,Maddie's first words were, um, "Did
you..." like, did you get a chanceto talk to him or did you see him?
Um, but the him in questionis like sulking behind
Chim, like very reluctantly.
He's followed Chim home andis come into the apartment and

(01:29:30):
Chim just books it out of there.
Like, I'm gonna leave you two alone.
I'm getting outta here.
Yeah.
And Buck tells her that mom and dad cameto the firehouse and he forgave them.
And Maddie looks pretty surprised.
She's like, "oh, that must have beendifficult." But Buck explains that it
wasn't really that hard because it's hardto feel betrayed by someone you didn't

(01:29:53):
really think you can count on anyway.
Ouch.
And it's also easy to lashout on the person, you know
is always gonna forgive you.
So I guess it's half an apology to Maddie.
Yeah, kind of.
He says that he keeps thinkingabout what it would've been like
if he'd known about it, would hestill have been him and Maddie's?

(01:30:15):
Like I'm pretty sure youwould always be Buck.
If anybody has any recommendationsof any like Buck New Aus, please
drop them in the comments.
Um, please let us know 'cause I'mfascinated and really don't know
how to use ao3's tagging systemto try and find the good ones.

(01:30:37):
Um, so if you know of a goodone of someone who has written
that fic, please let me know.
They must be out there.
They must be.
I just can never find them.
I'm guessing there's still notas many 9-1-1 fics as there
are Supernatural ones, but
Oh God, no.
I'm sure they must be out there.
So Buck asks Maddie totell him about Daniel.

(01:30:59):
It's because he can't ask Mum and Dad, buthe would like to know what he was like.
So Maddie agrees.
Yeah.
Maddie's like, "It would benice to talk about him again."
Hmm.
And it just broke my heart
At this point Buck notices the, the babybox that's still on the coffee table.

(01:31:19):
He says to Maddie, "Tell me the truth.I don't have one of these, do I?"
Um, and rather than saying yes, youdon't have one, um, Maddie tells him
to stay there and she disappears.
Just long enough for Buck to startgoing through the box again and
finding the photo of Daniel again.

(01:31:41):
Um, when she comes back, she's gota plastic bag it looks like, um, a
disposable bag from the hospital maybe,um, that's full of Buck's postcards.
Yeah.
And she says, "I don't have a box toput some postcards in, but here." Um,
and Buck is absolutely gobsmacked thatshe kept all of them because when she

(01:32:07):
left Doug, she only had two suitcasesand yet she used up precious space in
those two suitcases for his postcards.
Yeah.
Because as she says, everything thatmattered most was in those two suitcases.
So Sweet.

(01:32:28):
She always had Buck's postcardsto look at when things got hard.
Yeah.
She always had Buck.
And then we get a montage.
Oh, the cutest montage ever.
Yeah.
Yeah...
you don't agree?

(01:32:49):
We can talk about afterwards.
Um,
okay.
But it's, it's a Maddie and Buck montage.
It's just all of theBuck and Maddie moments.
Um, so we've got all of the timesthat Maddie patched Buck up after
he hurt himself when he was a kid.
We've got Buck saying, uh, "Butbeing a firefighter is my life!"

(01:33:14):
after, you know, the firetruckfell in his leg and he's concerned
that he'll never get to work again.
And Maddie has said that even if he'snot a firefighter, he'll still be Buck
and they'll still love him anyway.
There's Maddie scoldingbuck about the blood clot.
And if he'd been alone, she doesn'tknow what would've happened to him
when he started coughing up blood.

(01:33:37):
This, there's ath surprise party at,um, Athena and Bobby's house, which Buck
looked very surprised, but we are notsure if he actually was surprised because
we think someone gave it away first.
That was, was he acting surprisedor was Oliver just really
bad at acting at that point?
Like, we don't knowwhat was going on there.
Yeah, there's lots of other cute stuff.

(01:33:57):
There's lots of, there'sMaddie and Buck boxing.
There's Buck and Maddie drinkingwine together on the couch.
There's Maddie slapping Buck's handaway from the, the food when it's
Chim's birthday party at Eddie's house.
It's just like every little momentbetween the two of them over the last
two seasons, um, culminating in all oftheir pinky promises and Maddie promising

(01:34:21):
that she would never leave Buck behind.
And the episode ends with Bucksaying, we always had each other.
Aw.
Which is absolute bullshit.
And it's not how I think theepisode should have ended.
Yeah, you're right.
They didn't always have each other.
There were large stretches of timewhere they did not have each other,

(01:34:43):
they didn't have each other at all.
Yeah.
So how should it have endedthen, in your opinion?
Okay, so I was trying to work out whyI've always this ending unsatisfying.
And I think it's because somuch about Buck's story and
who Buck is was about him.
And they actually mentioned this inthe episode, is about Buck trying to

(01:35:06):
find his place in the world, tryingto find a family that will love him.
And he finds that in the 118.
He finds that in Bobby andAthena as his defacto parents.
He finds that in Chim andHen and Eddie and Chris and
everybody else around him, but.
At the end of the episode, and we'vetalked about this, sometimes it's

(01:35:29):
really subtle times, sometimes it's asubtle as a sledgehammer with this show,
that they will often disregard foundfamily and prioritize blood family.
And that's what they did in this episode.
Yeah.
They went, it doesn't matter.
The buck was trying to find his placeand he found his place with the 118.
It's more important that hereconnects with his parents and that

(01:35:50):
his parents reconnect with him andthat we emphasize the relationship
he had with his like blood sister.
See, I, I feel like they did thewhole found family thing when
they pulled him outta the fire.
So like they did, they co Ifeel like they covered both.
I just feel like they should haveemphasized the found family aspect and

(01:36:11):
Buck finding his place in the 118 more.
I mean, they could have addedsome 118 bits to the montage.
Yeah, like when they got the montage, itwas literally even the scene sections that
were 118 related, like Buck's surpriseparty, or there is, there was a section
where it was Eddie's um, graduation.

(01:36:34):
Yeah.
They got, yeah, their,their handing Buck cake.
It could have been more aboutthe 118, but no, it was literally
focused on Buck and Maddie.
That was what prior thatwas what prioritized.
Yeah.
And I feel like that's not the storythat they were trying to tell with Buck.
That's not the important story for Buck.
I, I get what you are saying,but I just love Buck and Maddie

(01:36:55):
so much that I don't care.
So like I, I see your point of view.
Um, but I feel like they,they did that with the, like
before the 118 pulled him out.
Oh yeah, 100%.
That's what that scene was.
Yeah.
And then this is about likeforgiving Maddie and resolving that.

(01:37:15):
I just don't think that his parentsshould have been given the grace.
Oh yeah.
Like, fuck.
But like he, he's, he's moving onat this point more than anything.
And that's why I hate that linewhere it's like Margaret saying,
oh, we're so proud of you.
It's like, you're not proud of him.
Nothing that we've seen indicatesthat you're proud of him, but
this show needs to have his, likebiological family connect with him.

(01:37:38):
They can't leave it as them beingestranged, so they're gonna ram in a
last minute forgiveness and reconnection.
I think it's not even a reconnect.
'cause like, just knowing that we don'treally get much of them later, I feel
like it was more just closure for Buckthan an actual, like he's, he's closed

(01:38:00):
the book on that and he's just like, okay,like I get why my parents are fucked and
let's just put them in the corner now.
Well I'll be happy tonot hear from them again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
I mean, did they, it would've beennice if they'd had something at the
end for the, for the 118 as well.

(01:38:20):
You're right, especially sincethis is supposed to be, this is
Buck begins, this is like the, theformation of Buck episode, you know?
That's just my feeling.
As I said, I just love Buck and Maddie, so
I do love Buck and Maddie too.
I just feel like that endingwas a little bit of a let down.
Mm-hmm.
For me.

(01:38:42):
Yeah.
Fair.
Yeah.
I really enjoyed this episode.
Um, apart from obviously theshitiness of his parents.
Um,
so now do you kind of understand ourperspective when we've been watching
sort of season one, season two Buck,because we knew this the whole time.
Yeah.
Now I feel like I need to go back andwatch some early episodes and just know.

(01:39:06):
You know more about Buck'smotivations for things.
Yeah.
Like going back and watching it.
It's just like, oh,
I think we've, we've mentioned thisbefore perhaps, or maybe we've talked
about a privately off air, um, aboutwhether the writers had this in Buck's
character arc from the beginning.

(01:39:26):
Yeah, we discussed it when we watched,
when we were watching it together.
When we watched it together, yeah.
Yeah.
So did they know from the get go,like when they were coming up with
the characters like Evan Buckley, bornand as a savior baby, family has, um,
abandoned him emotionally so he becamereckless in order to seek attention.

(01:39:46):
Discovers family in the 118.
Did they write season one andSeason two Buck knowing that, or
was that a storyline that they cameup with a lot later and just works
to when you retcon it and use it?
Yeah, it works so well.
Yeah.
Use it to sort of understandBuck's motivations in season one.
Yeah, I mean, I guess they didn'tneed to have all the details

(01:40:08):
hammered out from the start.
They could have just known that somethinghad happened, in his past that he was
running away from, that's why he didn'thave any family in town or whatever.
And I mean, and they had to, theywould've had to make up some kind of
backstory when Maddie showed up as well.
But yeah.
Did they know all of thesedetails right from the start?

(01:40:29):
Who knows?
Oh, that's cute.
The, the girl who playedMaddie in 2004 is named Maddie.
Oh, that's cute.
Yeah.
I feel this episode did a, a greatjob of like explaining like, you're
right, that they, they retconned... Ifthey didn't already know it, they've

(01:40:49):
retconned everything so perfectly.
Like it just explains all ofall of why Buck is like that.
Yes, yes.
In a very neat bow.
And especially when you go back andyou watch Season One Buck and his
relationship with Abby and you're sortof starting to look at it through this
lens going like, oh, he's just a littlebaby boy who's desperate for love.

(01:41:12):
Yeah.
Poor buck.
Desperate for love,desperate for a connection.
And Abby didn't even surf.
And it, it really makes you understandwhy he was so adamant that he had to be
a firefighter and he had to be a partof the 118 because they were his family
and like he didn't have another family.
'cause he, he literallydoesn't have anything else
because his family wasemotionally distant.

(01:41:33):
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
And that point, he didn't evenhave Maddie until she showed up.
Bless him.
Alright, so shall we just talkabout what's happening next week?
Yeah.
Alice's favorite episode next week.
What have we got a,
we do have, it's all right.
You know,

(01:41:54):
uh, next week the 118 feelsjinxed and Eddie tries to
move on in his personal life.
Uh, the summary says that the 118 believestheir fabled firehouse superstition
has come true when they have the dayfrom hell with a never ending series
of bizarre emergency calls, includingAthena in hot pursuit of the 118s

(01:42:20):
firetruck, a man who duct tapes himselfto a freeway billboard, a garage
full of fireworks, and a restaurantmanager who destroys his own business.
Oh, I feel like we've seensome of these things before.
Meanwhile, Eddie feels a sparkwith Christopher's former teacher,
but admits that he may notbe ready to move on just yet.

(01:42:42):
Okay that's the weirdestsummary for that episode.
Yeah.
But Okay,
sure.
Why not?
And the, the triggers for this episode areso weird, um, because they include clowns,

(01:43:04):
what?
discussion of depiction ofgrief, um, high speed traffic
pursuit, and randomly, octopus.
Okay.
Sounds like we're for a ride.
Okay.
Octopus.
Yep.

(01:43:29):
I mean, I know what they're referringto, but it's just, that's so random.
Just.
Well, let us know what youthought of this episode.
Please, um, let us know in a comment oryou can post, um, on the episodes post
on thatweewooshow.com or you can sendus a dm however you'd like to do that.

(01:43:52):
Thank you to all the people who'vealready been sending us comments.
We love to hear from you.
You can find all that contactinformation at thatweewooshow.com.
Thank you so much for listeningthis week, and we will talk to
you next time for episode episodesix, which is called "Jinx".
See you then.
Bye!
Bye.

(01:44:13):
9-1-1 is a fictional show, butmany of the situations portrayed
happened in the real world too.
If any of the topics we've discussedin this episode have affected you,
please know you are not alone.
You can call or text numbersin your country for help.
Just Google crisis support in yourlocation to find out the number.
If you enjoy our podcast, you canhelp us out by leaving us a review on
Spotify or your preferred listening appand by sharing our social media posts.

(01:44:37):
Find out more at thatweewooshow.com.
Come.
Come here.
Get inside.
Come here.
Would anyone like a dog?
Come here, go to bed.

(01:44:58):
I have one for sale.
Going for to any home.
Not even a good home.
Go to bed.
Go to bed.
Lay down drop.
Wait.
As you can tell, she's very welltrained, very responsive to commands.
Come.
No.
Come here.
Drop
Bless.
Stop crying.

(01:45:19):
Come up.
No, I don't want kisses.
No, don't do it.
Bed.
Drop that, drop.
So yeah, any home.
Not even a good home.
Just any home.

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4.05: Buck Begins

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