#if trudy doesn't want him then i will gladly take him

[soniaakasonorri]

My favourite 0.5 son <3

[lovecolibri]

SaL anon here friend with my thoughts on Tuesday's episode and some other thoughts I'll get to. So the episode was amazing, emotional, so well acted, and basically hitting every kidnapped lover trope in the book to great effect. Slow, horrifying realization by their other half that something is wrong when no one else thinks so. Team up between them and a close relative who grounds them so they can crack the case. Kidnapped lover has a chance to escape but doesn't take it because it lead to

the other getting hurt. Performing CPR on the kidnapped lover because they FUCKING DIED!! Truly a glorious fanfiction come to life and I loved every moment of that part. It goes without saying that I would have gladly traded less Owen for more 126, but the TK and Gabriel team up was amazing. The serial killer aspects were pretty minimal so I didn't need to skip anything (ngl, after seeing the cookie thing in the preview i was terrified), hell Trudy was deranged but kinda sweet. So here we come to my salty thoughts so feel free to ignore if you want. As much as I loved the episode, it was hardly part of any sort of arc for Carlos, if we can even say that there was one. Aside from the basic setup, nothing in it relied on the previous 3 episodes. You could have had Tarlos fight for any reason and Carlos get kidnapped on a case and it would have played out the same way. So if there is any sort of arc for Carlos its in the previous 3 episodes, and I'm having trouble seeing it. An arc (to me) is character has a problem, things happen, resolution has character come out stronger on the other side (see the top tier Buck tsunami arc, Buck feels useless without his job, he saves Chris, discovers he has value to others outside his job.) So what was Carlos's arc? It was supposedly confronting his past but that didn't really happen. He's there for Iris when he thinks he hadn't been, but he would have been for any friend who went missing. If it was about confronting his reasons for getting married shouldn't we have seen a conversation with his parents? Right now the marriage thing isn't even necessary as backstory, we already knew Carlos had these issues in S2. If Tim was going to introduce 5 million plot holes with this info it needed a payoff. Maybe more will be said later in the season, till then i feel like 4x04 is a beautiful work of fan service to vaguely justify Tim's poorly thought out/executed headcanon.

Hello my friend and I'm sorry I'm so late getting to this! My mom had some issues at work and then got sick and then I got like, a weird (for me) amount of energy to Do Something Productive and spent about 6+ hours yesterday sorting The Box Of Important Papers I have been throwing shit into for years and I couldn't stop or I would never start again and it would remain half-sorted for the foreseeable future. But now I've got some time before I start anything else (or just lay around and read/recover for the rest of the day)!

The Tarlos of Tuesday's episode was sooooo so so good! We got delicious angst without being an over the top serial killer torture fest (and yeah Trudy was enabling her son but you can't look at the way he talked to her and tell me he wasn't abusing her and she wasn't just waiting to be the next one he killed the second she failed to "prove" her love for him. Also, am I the only one that assumed when she said his dad "left" and he burnt himself dissolving "something" that he murdered his dad? ANYWAY), we got some truly beautiful lines from both TK and Carlos about their love for each other, and Rafael really just acted his heart out all episode. I loved every minute of their stuff this episode. I was particularly thrilled with the TK/Gabriel scenes and the way he and Andrea just were SO happy to see TK even without Carlos, and were prepared to just have him over to hang out for a bit was SOOOO sweet and speaks volumes about how much closer they have grown. We love to see it! And the parallels to Carlos and Owen looking for TK when he went missing?! *chef's kiss* Get you a father in law who will listen to your concerns about their child and take them seriously and will follow your lead when you Know Something Is Up.

And honestly, Owen had some lines that did make me laugh! I actually think him and O'Brian play off each other really well and I enjoy their reluctant team up. I am just ABSOLUTELY bored to tears with this stupid storyline for them. One is a fire captain and the other is a motorcycle cop! HOW are they both just being totally removed from their first responder world to push this whole boring ass FBI investigation that, from a lot of the comments I've seen around, no one could give two shits about. There are SO MANY procedurals on that revolve around these investigations and a couple other "firefighter" shows that are more about the soap opera level drama than the fun/occasionally serious and painful rescue calls. The 911verse has always stood out for being different, more hopeful and fun, having drama but not being A Drama, and being full of fun and interesting rescues that tie in with what the main characters are going through. And both shows losing their way SO early in their runs is...disappointing. And frustrating that the people in charge have gotten a lot of feedback about what fans AND the GA tune in for (cool/fun emergencies! Some drama but not too OTT, focus on our main characters and their relationships to/with each other!) and have decided they would rather be like every other show out there than to deviate from what they personally want to do because the audience enjoys something they don't think is The Thing Everyone Should Be Enjoying This Much. (Or worse, turn those earnest things that people loved about the show into a joke because they resent their audience and fanbase that gives their show longevity and keeps it trending and pulls in new viewers for some reason. 🙃🙃🙃) ANYWAY, I am READY for this Owen storyline to take a back fucking seat to literally anything. I've been re-watching season 1 and the difference in TK and Owen's relationship then and now is so disappointing to see. I know Ronen said he and RL have a really good TK/Owen episode (or scene? I don't fully remember) so I'm looking forward to that but I really, REALLY need to see more emergencies and first responder moments on this *checks notes* show very specifically about first responders doing their jobs. VERY excited for Marjan to get a storyline this week!

As for your salty thoughts, I'm with you. I don't *hate* the "Carlos married Iris" storyline but it definitely could have been handled better/more seamlessly (especially watching season1 again and the clues they COULD have dropped without revealing what was going on but didn't), and honestly was not needed as a set up for this episode. Actually, as much as what we got was good, I personally think it would have been better being an entirely separate thing from Iris. Like, if they just wanted to have Carlos getting hurt and TK teaming up with Gabriel to find him, they could have cut the whole thing about Iris going missing and put more emergency calls into episode 3 and had TK and Carlos still in a tiff because they're both stressed about Iris not signing the divorce papers yet, and then had Carlos get trapped while at work on a call! He could have been trying to save someone, hell it could have even been Iris! And we could have seen him talking to this person (even BETTER if it was Iris!) about all this love he has for TK and about TK's love for Gwen, and fighting to get out but not quite being able to make it, and even going into cardiac arrest and needing CPR! He still could have been off-duty with no one knowing he was involved at first so TK could still have the talk with the 126 and the call to Grace, and a moment with the Reyes parents and the ultimate team up with Gabriel. I just think there was a way to tie it more into the premise of first responders while still keeping all the good stuff we got!

And you're right about it not really being an "arc" because we...didn't actually get that much from Carlos about HIMSELF. We got the scene where he first tells TK about being married and why he did it, but we still know NOTHING about if they had a true wedding and told everyone or if it's something that they did privately and it came up later when she disappeared, we have no idea if everyone in the family knew it was a sham wedding or found out later, we still don't know when they decided it was cool to date other people and if they ever lived together, or how Carlos felt about watching his best friend start to change and become someone he didn't recognize, we know NOTHING except it is a Thing That Happened and they didn't get a divorce before she disappeared because ??? "reasons" (even though no one batted an eye about her having a long-term relationship with someone else), then she was presumed dead, and then it was because the US healthcare system is a joke. We didn't get to delve much into Carlos' side of things, just hear his version of Iris's side of things! And as you said, if it was about him confronting his past, WHERE was a talk with his parents?! Where was the discussion about his choice to do this and what they did or didn't say or did or didn't know about it all?!

I'm hoping we get some more in the coming weeks because we still don't have a resolution to this arc since Iris still has not applied for an annulment or signed the papers, we haven't seen Carlos talking to his parents, and we didn't get a big growth moment or anything because we didn't get to see TK talking to anyone about how he was trying to be supportive but he was really reeling from the news and wanted to make sure Carlos felt supported and loved but he also needed to vent about it. Like, the only conflict is about if it can happen soon enough for the wedding in 8-ish weeks, because everyone is on board and everyone is fine with things. IDK it just feels like if this was going to be a big thing, it needed to be A Big Thing which you can do without the people in the couple being awful to each other, but you do kind of need to allow them to have big and occasionally messy feelings, and TALK about those feelings, and show some change from the start of the arc to the end. There was never any really true conflict here, so there is...nowhere to grow from. I don't hate this, I just think it could have been handled a little better and more interestingly but SO MUCH TIME is going to this Owen arc that everything else is suffering instead of giving this plot some room to breathe and filling up the time with more emergencies, and giving Owen a more central arc later on. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

As always, thanks for your thoughts my friend! I'll be working on our song ask next!

[rogerina-deacon]

Gardner with a plus size girl he delivers to that seems to be getting more packages from a dieting/weight loss website and he just kinda blurts out that she doesn't need to lose any weight bc she's pretty as she is? My poor baby heart is such a sucker for this now that I think about it more

I’m so in love with this concept dear lord 😭

Three months. That’s how long she’s been living in that house, and that’s how longs he’s been her mailman. So, he had an idea of what kind of packages she got. Mostly Amazon boxes and new credit card offers that he noticed she promptly tore up as soon as she flicked through the letters. But lately, he noticed she was getting various boxes makes with the logos of NutriSystem, Weight Watchers, and the like. Of course, he wasn’t supposed to be snooping his customers mail, but Gardner found himself really liking Y/N and when he noticed those logos, his brows bunched up in confusion. Did she really not know how cute she is? He often found himself wondering this as he approached her door. Of course, he was getting distracted by his thoughts of you and tripped over the steps to your front door, the boxes falling from his arms making quite a bit of noise.

Opening your door, you were met with a wincing and scraped Gardner trying to keep his composure as he fumbled with your mail.

“Oh gosh, Gardner are you okay?” You asked, kneeling down to bring the packages in.

“Yeah, I-I’m fine, don’t worry about it” he brushed off, handing you the last box.

“Your knees are bleeding, I’m gonna worry about it. Why don’t you come in, the least I can do is fix you up a bit” you said, standing to your feet before stretching out your hand to help Gardner get up, which he gladly took as he winced from the scrapes your brick steps gave him.

You led him to your kitchen, arm around his waist with a hand on his arm as you took him to the kitchen island, signaling for him to sit on a barstool. You turned to rummage through the medicine cabinet for the first aid kit, a proud smile on your face when you found it.

“Okay, lets just clean up the blood…” you trailed off, taking the cotton ball you had drenched in water to the scrape, gently cleaning his wound. He couldn’t stop staring at you as you took care of him, brows furrowed as he lost himself in how caring and beautiful he found you.

Getting up, you walked over to the trash bin to dispose of the bloodied cotton balls. Grabbing a bandage to put on him, you settled back into the stool next to him.

“You don’t need to lose weight” he blurted out suddenly, confusion spread across your face as you looked up at him.

“I’m sorry, I…” you said, trying to underwent he’d say that.

“I mean, I noticed that you were getting weight loss packages, and I just wanted to tell you that you don’t need them.” He explained, before continuing. “You look great just how you are, you don’t need to change it.”

“Um, thanks Gardner, but I… do you really think I look okay?” You asked, needing confirmation.

“Okay? I think you look more than okay, I mean… look, every time I see you I just think of how pretty you are” he admitted, a blush rising to his cheeks.

“Wow, Gardner, I uh… well, I don’t really know what to say, I mean…” you said, a slight chuckle at the end.

“You know, you’re probably the only guy that’s said that to me…” you said, still confused by the situation.

“Why? I mean, you look great, why has no one told you?” He asked, genuinely not understanding what you said.

“I don’t know, I guess guys just don’t find me cute…”

“But they do, I’m proof”

“Yeah, but you’re not the only guy in the world, Gardner, a lot of guys… well, a lot of guys just don’t think a bigger girl can look nice” you said, wondering why you had to explain yourself. Surely he knew that bigger women weren’t conventionally attractive, right?

“Well they’re stupid, then” he said, still not understanding but just accepting what you said.

“Thanks, Gardner… well, I’m sure you have more deliveries to make, wouldn’t wanna keep you longer than I should” you said, a forced smile on your face at the prospect of him leaving.

“Yeah, probably…” he said, realizing that he was supposed to be at Trudy’s by now.

“Can I maybe take you out tonight? There’s this new Italian restaurant a couple towns over. I was gonna go with my brother Calvin, but I was thinking maybe I could take you?” He said, stumbling over his words as he did.

“That’d be great, pick me up at seven?”

“Actually, I don’t drive, so could I maybe just meet you here and you drive?”

“That’s fine with me, see you then.” You said, a genuine smile on your face now that you know you’ll be seeing him tonight.

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