makorragal-312

[makorragal-312]

Just something that I’ve been pondering..

[makorragal-312]

Probably just me, but Athena's ending during the finale kinda gave me the vibe that the show was gonna send her to Minnesota to be near Bobby's grave.

Didn't really like that.

[makorragal-312]

When I really think about it, Tim still could've gotten his whole "Bobby fake-out" death had he just gone with a different angle.

He could've just made it to where Bobby was in a death-like stasis due to the virus. And when the team learns about it, not only can they not see him but they can't say anything about his condition and have to proceed like acting he's deceased until a cure is made or Bobby wakes up (if he ever did). So when the funeral happens, it still feels like a loss to them because they don't even know if he's ever going to come back to them and they have to act like he truly doesn't exist when he still does.

But instead of just going "Damn, our fans are so smart," going with the flow, and coming up with an alternate way to still maintain his vision, he decides to get spiteful and come up with a completely different conclusion that not only destroys the show's vibe and comfortability, but disrespects one of his most valued actors.

You know, like a dumbass.

[makorragal-312]

Thanks to Tim Minear, every day that passes since 8x15 is another day where Buck shoots Bobby an "are you okay" text and he never gets a response

[makorragal-312]

Just how bad were things on set for practically all of the main cast to change their hair???

[makorragal-312]

For the rest of hiatus, I'm choosing to stay in the timeline where Bobby was left in a death-like stasis due to the virus but ultimately wakes up and takes a leave of absence as captain to recover so Hen becomes interim captain and the season ends with the Grant-Nash housewarming at their completed house and everyone is laughing and having a good time, especially the Buckley-Diaz family because Chris is back home and Buck and Eddie literally had a kitchen make-out session before they came over so they're extra happy.

[makorragal-312]

Thanks to Tim Minear, realism is to the 911 fandom what evil is to Mermaid Man.

Maybe even worse...

[makorragal-312]

So Buck isn't transferring departments but now he's transferring houses.

[makorragal-312]

Welp, I guess the seismic shifts were the friends and collective trauma we made along the way.

[makorragal-312]

I can't believe that this upcoming episode is gonna determine whether or not this show is still gonna have a fanbase.

All because of one man's bullshit need for "realism."

[makorragal-312]

Imagine Eddie and Chris are still at the house and Eddie gets a phone call from Captain Morales, asking about whether or not he made his devision to join the EPFD.

All the while, Chris is watching live news of the building collapse and sees footage of Buck trying to come out of the rubble and getting progressively more trapped. So he ends up running to Eddie and telling him what's going on.

And without a second thought, Eddie drops the call as he decides to leave, suit up, and get to his partner.

[makorragal-312]

The lack of mention about Peter and all that he contributed to this show better be because he's gonna be confirmed to be alive in the finale and will officially come back in S9.

Because if not, not only is this show ABSOLUTELY fucked to all hell but Tim Minear truly is a disrespectful and clueless dick.

[makorragal-312]

"You've been spiraling since the funeral. And no one knows how to talk to you about it."

This is my one gripe with the kitchen fight.

In this show's annoying and desperate attempt to zoom past everyone's grief over Bobby to beat it over the audience's heads that he may be dead permanently, they've made the active choice to neglect showing Buck's grief over Bobby and how he's processed it. So now, the only scenes we get of him grieving is the opening scene of Buck at the table alone and him breaking down in the confession box.

So when Eddie snaps at him the way he does, the reason it feels so jarring and out of left field for some people is because we haven't seen any of what Buck has done vis emotional spiral that pushed Eddie to confront him the way he did. Yeah, he said that Buck was "spiraling" and what he's done since the funeral, but we don't get to see how it was done and just how severe Buck's grief and emotional/mental isolation really was.

And given how by Eddie's own admission, he was worried about how Buck was handling things and that no one knew how to even talk to him about his grief, things must've been really bad and stressful for Eddie if it made him snap at him the way he did before he left for Texas.

This is why it will always be a poor decision for the show to do all these time jumps from the moment we saw the body bag instead of letting the audience be alongside the team for the grieving process.

They could've shown Buck being the team therapist.

They could've shown more of Buck being trapped in his grief.

They could've shown the team worrying about Buck.

They could've shown Eddie worrying about Buck whenever they were in the house.

They could've shown Eddie trying to reach out to Buck and being met with nothing while trying to deal with his own grief over Bobby dying

They could've shown Eddie becoming increasingly more and more hurt and upset at Buck for thinking his grief was his own.

But they didn't.

And now this one thread is left hanging over what's truly the most important and masterful scene of the entire episode.

[makorragal-312]

The Buddie kitchen fight scene has been up on YouTube for at least 40 minutes and already there are people painting Eddie as the villain, saying he's a walking red flag, that he has anger issues, and that Buck should stay away from him. Even going as far as to say that Buddie was "becoming toxic."

I- Did we watch the same thing?

[makorragal-312]

I need to talk about talk about the kitchen fight scene for a bit because holy shit.

The choice of having the camera work be so shaky and occasionally follow either Buck or Eddie as they walked around the kitchen made the scene feel so much more intense than it would have if the camera was still.

It really helped convey how raw and emotional Buck and Eddie were respectively; Buck with his repression and grappling with Bobby's death and how he feels everyone is moving on and walking on eggshells with him and Eddie with his anger and hurt towards Buck and his behavior post-funeral and his own pain and grief about learning about Bobby the way he did.

So when Eddie got up in Buck's face or whenever the two got close up with each other, not only did it make me anxious and on bated breath wondering what was gonna be said or done next, but it made me wonder just how far either of them were gonna go.

And the contrast of the steady camera work from when they showed Eddie's reaction to Bobby's passing in El Paso to the camera's shakiness when it panned back to Eddie breaking down in the kitchen?

An absolute masterpiece.

[makorragal-312]

Tim Minear: I had to kill off Bobby because of "realism."

Also Tim Minear: LET'S HAVE A WOMAN TURN INTO A DRAGON AND SET HER DENTIST'S FACE ON FIRE BECAUSE OF THE WATER IN HER MOUTH

[makorragal-312]

I'll go ahead and say this: this episode was surprisingly good and it definitely felt like a return to form of how the season initially started out. The acting was solid as always, the character interactions were genuine and the callbacks to calls and the emergencies correlating to the episode's main situation was done really well.

Which begs the question:

Did Bobby really have to die for this?