#i noted a lack of henren

[beastologist]

↪ 911 on ABC, 7.09 “Ashes, Ashes”

[captain-hen]

re your complaints/critiques on 911 said in an anon response:

I 100% agree!! On the finale, I love everything about the first 30 minutes! the bridge collapse is everything, i could go on about that for hours, even the birth on the couch, i thought that was a funny twist in the couch theory. I love everyone else's storylines (bathena honeymoon, henren's newest foster daughter, madney wedding planning) I could like eddie with marisol if it ends with him growing and them not together, but buck's ending was so infuriating! like you said it felt like he was going in circles which can be true to real life, doesn't always make for good television. The biggest thing im worried about it it being nearly exactly like bucktaylor, especially if they last a season. I don't care if its a slowburn but like you said, theres slowburn and setting up something with no payoff over and over

anyways, Im surprised they didn't circle back to jo and mallory (molly maybe?). they usually circle back to the injuries of the week to get the like conclusion so (and i didn't realize until after) to not circle back to them felt weird. Do you think we'll get them in the next season?

OH also i thought it was so interesting that we almost / could've gotten the lees for this ep! tbh i thought it would be a scene where chim is in the hospital with maddie (if this wouldn't be a scene were maddie and chim jump the gun andd marry) and they reaffirm that chim is a psuedo son to them this leads to my other question: did you think we would've gotten a madney wedding like in the S2 finale for Bathena and would you have wanted that?

anyways, I thought this ep did the platonic relationships really well (buck and hen, buck and chim, hen and chim, and buck and bobby) and did literally every other storyline well except for buck's ending

i realize like as i finished that this was kinda neg so if you don't want to respond to any of this dw I understand adsf

i enjoyed everything related to the emergency! i thought it was done very well, while i wanted it to be more high-stakes i get why they couldn't end what they thought might be their last episode on a cliffhanger or something. the 'pay it forward' thing really worked so well, not just with the civilians and jeff but i also clocked it with ravi and buck (someone also pointed out that the 118's degree of injuries was based on how much experience they've had on the job, which is why ravi didn't face any danger at all, and i thought that was an interesting theme!). i enjoyed how they wrapped up the other characters and i love that bathena got their cruise.

my major problem is the way buck's storyline was resolved, while the sperm donor thing was wrapped up very well; i'm unhappy and tired of him going in circles with natalia yet again. i also dislike the implication that him ending the season being single would mean it's an 'unhappy' ending for him—aside from all the obvious issues with that statement, buck literally started out this season by trying to be comfortable in being single and figuring out life by himself. it would have been the PERFECT conclusion to his arc. i love buck, i really do, but i'm not interested in sitting through who knows how many more episodes of him trying to learn this lesson again, i'm just not.

the thing with eddie and marisol was actually cute and it went more or less how i expected tbh. the way she was re-introduced left very little doubt that eddie would date her again. (given the lack of set-up, tho, i wouldn't be surprised if they opened up s7 with the relationship having fizzled out during the time-gap).

when i saw the synopsis mentioning the lees, i thought they might appear in a montage of sorts with chim recovering and i'm disappointed we didn't get to see that, especially with the stuff with chim's dad. (side note: 911 really needs to do better on the chimney front. i'm gonna need a season 7 that treats him like his own person for the entirety of it, not just maddie's partner. 6B has given us some of that, but i need more).

i'm actually glad they didn't rush the madney wedding. the bathena wedding being the way it was kinda made sense given the circumstances of how they got together in the first place, and how their relationship progressed from there. madney on the other hand—they've always taken things slow, they've been cautious and thoughtful while taking each step, largely because of their own past and baggage. what worked for bathena wouldn't really work for them, especially considering maddie's trauma surrounding marriage, i'm really glad they didn't rush this.

[milenadaniels]

Hi! I saw your tag on your informal buddie lap makeout poll (Which, exceptional scientific inquiry. Cannot wait to see the results. Especially if it leads you to write something...)

Anyway, what is your thinking on lonestar and a potential buck +e ddie sex scene? (FWIW, I don't watch LS. I tried, but just could not. Not yucking anyone's yum, just didn't work for me.)

Curious what you think?

Thank you! The study is going well, I look forward to analyzing the results in depth!

(Please note: after three hours of writing out this response, I realize I may have misunderstood your question 😂 If you meant "what do you think a buddie sex scene would look like given tarlos", please let me know and it would be my genuine pleasure to describe that in great detail. What follows is not that.....)

I have been thinking about the potential of a buddie sex scene more than I ought to, I'm sure. You could say I've been a smidge preoccupied since realizing all the legit sex scenes in the show happened in season 1/early season 2. In seasons 3/4, the closest I think we've gotten to textual sex is Madney having sex to induce labour and that consisted of Maddie throwing her shirt at Chimney from off-screen.

Someone on that post (can't find it now of course) said that 911 Lone Star took over the original 911 later time slot and thus took over the ability to have sexier content.

As someone who hasn't watched a television show live in like 5 years, your ask has prompted me to do actual research to confirm this 🤓 According to pogdesign, 911 currently plays Mondays at 8pm and 911LS plays at 9pm which supports the theory.

That said, it kind of strikes me as weird that 8pm is considered too early for sexy content? But maybe I'm just out of touch with cable television??

So I did more research! So much research omfg this took 3 hours of my life. 😅

First we define the issue at hand

I'm defining a "sex scene" as a scene that involves two or more people mackin' on each other with any of the following:

the beginning of clothing removal onscreen

the movement towards a bedroom or bed

getting into someone's lap as a sign of escalation

post-coital pillow talk or cuddling

actual shots of naked skin and writhing (softcore porn essentially)

So 911 got moved to 8pm. Do any other 8pm shows have sex scenes?

CW - The 100 🔥 (I know there was a minimum of 2 wlw sex scenes, though they may have been post-coital)

CW - Riverdale 🔥🔥 is another teen show that I don't watch so I youtubed "Riverdale sex scenes" and I'm led to believe at least one couple is banging semi-onscreen well into season 4 (it has 4 seasons???)

NBC - Chicago Med 🔥, a procedural show not about teenagers and seems to have a least 1 couple with sexy scenes (the other Chicagos air at 9pm and 10pm) and I saw lap sitting for a hardcore makeout for the other couple!!!!! TIM TAKE NOTES!

NBC - Superstore 🔥, a half-hour comedy that played at 8pm on NBC, did have at least this one cut-away sex scene

So 2 teen shows, 1 procedural and 1 comedy all had something in the way of "sex scenes" while airing at 8pm.

But what if Fox the network is the sex-scene-killers??

Apparently Fox literally has only 5 scripted dramas of which the 911 is one and the others are:

The Resident 🔥🔥, a medical drama that plays at 8pm as of season 2 (9pm for season 1) and the main couple seem to have several sex scenes, but interestingly from what I can glean from YT, they may have stopped after s2 (though the couple stays together until at least s4 from what I can tell)

LA's Finest 🚫, a rebroadcast through Fox, it airs at 9pm and YT didn't show me any sexy scenes

Fantasy Island 🔥🔥 which plays at 9pm and looks to have sexier content based on the trailer

911: Lone Star 🔥🔥🔥 which plays at 9pm. Tarlos have had like 2 heavy makeouts/implied sex scenes plus a pretty hardcore-for-tv sex scene in the s2 finale

So it seems like even for Fox, the 8pm timeslot isn't necessarily what's vetoing the sex scenes in 911. But just to hammer that home, I did even more researching into the watershed hours, which is apparently the designated time broadcasters can show sexiness, but in the US that's 10pm to 6am so if the restrictions were such that they couldn't show any sex scenes before 10pm, Tarlos wouldn't have gotten that finale action (thank you, IRL bff who watched 911LS so I didn't have to!)

TL;DR - a summation of our findings

The 8pm timeslot is not the sex-scene-killer I once thought it was (see: all them filthy shows)

911 being a cop show is not a sex-scene-killer (see: dramas, procedurals and comedies all had sex scenes)

Fox is not anti-sex in their 8pm scripted dramas in general (see: The Resident)

Fox is not anti-sex homophobically (see: Tarlos, Hen/Eva)

However!! There seems to be a somewhat weird, somewhat isolated trend of Fox shows either cutting off or tapering off sex scenes (see: 911, The Resident) after 2 seasons or specifically after 2019.

So what are the theories (from least to most favourite)?

Theory #1 (Buddie loses 🚫): "Something" happened at Fox in 2019. The Resident is the only true analogue to 911 as it's also on Fox, also premiered in January 2018, also started at 9pm but was moved to 8pm (in season 2, not season 3 like 911). If my very brief googling can be trusted, The Resident saw a lot of sex scenes in season 2 (at 8pm) but after 2019 there isn't much to write home about. That lines up with what we've seen in 911. If something happened internally at Fox that changed broadcasting guidelines for 8pm, then canon Buddie will not get sex scenes unless the timeslot changes back.

Pros: It would be a hell of a coincidence wouldn't it?? Both shows airing around the same time, both stop showing sex scenes around the same time???

Cons: It's pretty weak, I can't find anything that supports "something" happening in 2019 that would affect an 8pm timeslot but not the 9pm one.

Theory #2 (Buddie loses 🚫): Sex as a short-term sales tactic. Fox uses sex in the first two seasons of shows to boost ratings and get people hooked because sex sells. But then, for whatever reason, they taper it off. If so, Buddie being canonized would not produce any sex scenes as we're far removed from season 2.

Pros: The Resident and 911 both stopped showing sex scenes after season 2 from what I can gather

Cons: If sex sells, why wouldn't it keep selling all the way to the bank?? There's no reason to stop something that's working.

Theory #3 (Buddie wins 🔥): Actors are the roadblock. Fox is fine with sex scenes at 8pm but the actors aren't comfortable! If so, Buddie sex scenes could be in the cards as both actors have had on-screen sex scenes previously.

Pros: Angela Bassett, Peter Krause and JLH are bigger names and they presumably get to not get naked on screen or simulate sex scenes if they don't want to. Aisha Hinds as a (criminally) smaller name wouldn't have had that kind of leverage in season 1, nor would Ryan Guzman in season 2? And Oliver Stark knew what he was signing up to to play a self-diagnosed "sex addict" so.

Cons: This is absolute, complete conjecture. I have zero idea what each of their comfort levels with sex scenes are or how that might relate to the writing/direction of their characters.

Theory #4 (Buddie wins 🔥): Stable canon relationships kill sex. Fox dramas use sex only pre-maritally to build relationships and the network or the showrunners/writers decide it's not as important once characters are in stable relationships/married. If so, we will get Buddie sex scenes as their canon relationship develops.

Pros: The Resident couple did get married post-season 2 I think? Athena stopped having onscreen sex after she married Bobby. Hen had sex but out of her marriage.

Cons: That's dumb, let married people bone. And we technically do have a Madney sex scene, tame as it was (but maybe they straddle of the line of stable but pre-marital???). Also if sex = building relationship, EddieAna have been excluded from that formula oops 😌

Theory #5 (Buddie wins 🔥): We're overthinking all of this. There hasn't been sex scenes past season 2 because the stories haven't called for it but when it does, such as the start of a new relationship, then we'll get some!

Pros: We haven't had any "new" relationships other than EddieAna since season 2 and their lack of intimacy is a glaring reminder they aren't well suited - they're not boning for plot reasons. While not strictly meeting the aforementioned definition of a "sex scene", we could use Albert coming out of Veronica's shower as a use of sex-as-relationship-building.

Cons: That's dumb, let married people bone, the sequel. Especially since HenRen is criminally neglected in terms of development and could use a fun playful sex scene.

So what have we learned?

Should Buddie go canon, 3 theories indicate we'd get some sex scenes for them, and only 2 say we wouldn't. The odds are in our favour. 🤡

I will do literally anything to procrastinate writing this damn fic that's been tormenting me for weeks. Please someone, anybody...send help...