#I'm also thinking about how Marisol fits into this narrative and how this idea of being taken in or fooled by a person plays into what we

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Thinking thoughts about Abuela being back and with this backstory about her being taken in by charlatans and Eddies whole catholic guilt thing and how the two things kind of play into one another as an exploration of faith and being taken in by something.

Abuela giving all her money to the tarot card readers etc because she was searching for something - for connection (with Abuelo) - trying to recapture what she had lost, and How Eddie has spoken about trying to re-find the magic he had with Shannon - how Eddie hasn't actually fully reconciled the Shannon of it all when it comes to relationships and how his Catholic guilt connects into that.

How Marisol as a physical representation of Catholicism is part of that narrative - how Eddie is entering a place where he has to chose his path - in order to move on from Shannon he needs to fully square the hole - catholic or non catholic. And how that needs to happen first - before he can begin his queer journey!

[the-ace-with-spades]

I've had mixed feelings about this season of 9-1-1...

Some of the issues about this season are, I'm pretty sure, caused by how short it is and the pacing being messed up for a lot of plotlines there.

The first two episodes felt overstretched to me, like the whole cruise bit could have been fit in two episodes instead of three - the third cruise ep was better but that's because it was oversaturated with characters and side plots and you couldn't compress that much of it. The first two just felt very slow and had put a lot of boring exposure on Lola and Norman that didn't really parallel the struggles Athena and Bobby had that well in my mind. 9-1-1 was always really heavy on narrative parallels in episodes (rescued people's dilemmas paralleled the crew's personal problems and guided them to have a look inwards into their own lives - it's quite common in procedural dramas and serves well if done with heart) but this time it feels very disconnected and mismatched.

Buck's arc was mostly good, very in character and paced in a way that didn't feel very rushed - stuff happened fast but it still felt realistic and natural. I do think it could've been done more in depth and show Buck's thought process more in some occasions but it wasn't bad.

I didn't like the wedding episodes as much as I thought I would (Jennifer and Kenneth were brilliant acting wise tho). I have a big problem with how Maddie's relationship with her and Buck's parents is treated in the show (mostly I don't think 'the united front' was really there as much as the writers tried to push but that's a typical depiction of 'parents are always going to be your parents no matter how shitty and deserve countless second chances' that you see in media and never like) but the idea of a huge wedding for Maddie and Chim seemed so out of character for them and the hospital wedding was also less private and romantic than what I'd imagine for them. I didn't like the bachelor party bit, it seemed very pointless to me and took some time from Chim's story that could give it a better pacing. Not to mention the depiction of encephalitis was very jarring as someone who actually had treated patients with encephalitis...

Eddie's arcs are... well, a bit ridiculous this season. Marisol has zero depth from the beginning, adding that whole almost a nun background didn't make it better. It might be just me, but in the scenes where Eddie is alone (not with another main cast member) he almost seems to be lacking personality?? Like his behaviour feels like a plot device more than something that matches what we could see of him beforehand?? The Catholic guilt took the worst turn possible with the whole nun bit, there's so many ways you could show Catholic guilt without making it about something as shallow and impersonal as having sex with an ex almost nun. It's literally not related that much to what Eddie's Catholic guilt (that is implied to have existed for years in him) would relate.

Kim is a whole other thing. Not an affair but still feels like an affair. The most unrealistic, farfetched way to deal with guilt and resentment for your dead wife ever. People don't just meet doppelgangers of their dead wife and decide to use them to deal with their issues and said doppelgangers don't just agree to it and find it normal. It's just some messed up way to push Eddie into that direction faster but it's just taking away the complexity of Eddie's feelings about Shannon and pushing it into a couple of short scenes that seem like they were taken out of a bad soap opera.

Mara's story line is...ugh. Look, foster kids in TV are my pet peeve. Especially troubled foster kids and the way people treat them and how people treating them is portrayed. Karen wanting her rehomed the minute she showed troubled behavior took away a lot from her for me, even if she retracted later, this just shouldn't be the first instinct of a foster parent and should not show. The way how they portrayed the whole investigation of Mara's past also pissed me off - this is not how it'd look in real life, so many of the foster parents just don't know what happened to the kid and have to work on figuring it out with the kid, on earning their trust by putting actual work into the relationship than just playing a detective and finding out how they got 'messed up'. Denny is literally having the most empathy out of all of them and that's just so bad. The way Mara magically opened up in such short notice and seems to be now an angelic child that trusts Hen and Karen completely is also something so jarring.

Involving a councilwoman into it all felt like such an overinflated way to stir trouble again. The realistic problems foster parents and adoption parents face are much more mundane than a whole ass politician suddenly deciding to run a vendetta on Hen. Hen and Karen are lesbians and black, Hen works a demanding job with long hours. CPS could get fussy about such a small thing as a teacher that is not the most tolerant reporting them for late pickups or forgotten lunches or even someone from social services Mara isn't making enough progress fast enough. The adoption judge themselves could be biased towards them and make the process difficult. There's so many ways it could have been done without involving the councilwoman and the incidents Hen's been either cleared off charges or acted with the protocol. That is, in my opinion, a cheap way to make it a conflict that is relying, emotionally, on hating the villain only (the councilwoman) and not showcasing the real struggles Karen and Hen could actually have, which would take time to expose in plot.

I did like Bobby's episode(s). A lot. Amir, as a character, is well rounded as well, it's just that any time other characters interact with him, they just seem to be acting so illogical and out of character - this is mostly about Maddie and Athena, I can understand why Bobby would act the way he does. I think Bobby is by far one of the best explored characters in the show and they didn't mess it up this season like they've done with the rest - the rest feels actually a bit two dimensional almost.

On another note, this season feels like a drama rather than procedural drama. I barely remember any rescues and emergencies and the ones that happened were really short and uncomplicated and brought almost nothing into the episodes.