#not gonna tag athena bc ik it was not the main point here even if i talked about her

[timingmatters]

honestly, i was so angry about how they handled everything regarding taylor kelly my beloved.

the show is full of copaganda and loves to ignore everything bad re police and athena. but since the very first time they introduced taylor in s2, they acted as if reporters and journalists are evil for simply standing by the truth and giving citizens correct information? taylor wanted to report that the 118 firefighters were dumb enough to eat something that a stranger baked for them and thus were high while on the clock. as a citizen of LA, i would be very invested in knowing if the people who are supposed to save me are drugged?? the show framed it as if the reputation of the 118 is more important that the safety of the LA citizens. what is it was a surgeon who got high and then went to operate on a patient????? what then?

athena herself told them that the police always throws away baked goods which they receive from people. they know about potential risks, meaning that the 118 station was showcasing a big case of naivety by eating those pot brownies. and still, taylor was framed some sort of devil for actually doing her job as she was supposed to lmao. it irked me that it was only pure plot convenience/plot armor that protected the others from real repercussions, too. nothing Bad™ or Serious™ happened during their calls that day, just so the audience can (a) giggle and (b) wave off any realistic concerns about drugged firefighters and (c) blindly accept the weird ass "journalism is bad" rhetoric. however, imagine if they actually lost lives that day because they were all too high to do their work properly. what then, huh? what then @ 911 writers? bobby and the others would have had to answer to the police in such a case, potentially facing real consequences, losing their jobs, etc.

the fact that they continued to frame taylor and journalism as bad just… really put me off. is that the hill that 911 wants to die on lol? as taylor said, what she thinks is most valuable is the truth (she practiced that principle with buck as well when she appreciated his honesty about him cheating and "trapping her" in the apartment). even if the truth can hurt, it's better than living a lie or never fully knowing what is or isn't true – she of all people knows that painfully well. this is why i haaated it when buck ended up breaking up with her because he could not accept that she will never stop fighting for the truth… that's such a major L imo.

she said she wanted to help others and keep them safe, and to her personally, knowing all the hard facts is helpful. and she is right!! having all the necessary information allows people to make decisions and stay safe – Covid and other diseases? natural disasters? traffic reports? muderer with a gun on the loose? we have newspapers and radios and tv news for a damn reason! to make things worse, buck lived in the shadow of his dead brother, and he suffered all his life because he did not know the truth about daniel, and his parents, and why they are how they are!! their (buck's and taylor's) approach to help others may be different, yes, but i think that was so compelling about them ngl. we know that buck is curious and enjoys playing detective (with taylor and in general), we know that he's been lied to all his life and suffered for it, we know he felt very guilty that he did not know that doug abused maddie (another big secret), we know buck is about not-pretending and being honest. in many ways, no matter if romantic or platonic, i think they had a very interesting foundation based on their respective background stories. that is why making taylor look like the bad person because she chose her integrity as a journalist and decided to share facts with the public leaves such a bad taste in my mouth. the citizens of LA that heard the news from her were probably very glad to be informed about some dangerous guy who killed people?! killing journalism only ever benefits people in powerful positions who try to hide shit just to look better or to avoid reasonable discourse in the public eye...

idk. sorry this got so long lmao! feel free to ignore, i just felt like ranting and your post about taylor inspired me. i love taylor kelly, and i love journalists who oftentimes risk their lives when they reveal and speak up against wrongdoings of powerful people. if buck cannot appreciate taylor kelly, i will ♥

idk. sorry this got so long lmao! feel free to ignore, i just felt like ranting and your post about taylor inspired me. i love taylor kelly, and i love journalists who oftentimes risk their lives when they reveal and speak up against wrongdoings of powerful people. if buck cannot appreciate taylor kelly, i will

I agree with you a lot!!! Although i dont think the show depics taylor or journalism as bad. I think it just depicts that Buck dislikes it. While I agree with everything you said, i also think that there is inherently a conflict of interests. Bucks’s job to is make people are safe first, and then have people deal with the emergency before deciding how they would want it to be made public. That’s 100% fair and valid. Taylor’s job is the opposite. Which is also fair and valid. I dont think the show portrays them (journalists) as bad. Just inconvenient and kinda annoying when they get in the way of them working (which happens irl!! And is a valid sentiment!!). I also agree things could have been worst if the 118 had been called to something more dangerous when they were high, but i dont think taylor was the bad guy. It was just portrayed that it wasn’t something that buck was looking for in terms of relationships. Which is fair!!! He wanted privacy and she can’t afford to give him privacy on all his stories when his job involves the public. He is not a bad guy for wanting that to be handled internally, and she is not a bad guy for wanting to expose such error. (And hey, the department did deal with that, asked them questions, and eventually found the person in charge. And since the beginning of their trip they were recognized and even handcuffed so they couldn’t hurt anyone, they did not actually get involved with emergencies when they were drugged. They were stopped).

My issue was not how the writing overall did taylor or their relationship. I think it was the ending I didn’t like. If Taylor, like when the drugs story happened, had stood her ground and THEN buck had broken up, i would have been completely fine with it. They were never gonna work, she was sure on who she was in regards to what is public information, and Buck realized that didn’t work for what he was looking for in someone. I think thats fine. He needs someone to understand sometimes the stories in his life need to be digested before talked about, and dating a journalist was not it. Both had a point and both deserved to go, and like a previous anon said, he needed to be the one to let go first for his arc. All fair. What pissed me off was that she was WILLING to change (which she didn’t have to) and willing to set new boundaries to appease him. And he still walked away. Which makes it go from “we dont work together and buck made the first step to let go” to “she loves him and is willing to keep changing herself to make it work whereas he has had a foot out the door since the beginning”. Their last fight was my issue. Because making her stand down just to be let go regardless felt very shitty to me. Just overall a shitty ending to her, where the ending could have given her more grace by making her not back down.

Listen i do love 911. All shows like this are copaganda, however i think is arguably to say not so much here. 911 is about firefighters and emergency responders first and foremost. A firefighter is NOT the same as a cop. Actually, multiple characters (like Buck) dont really like cops lmao. And they have showed multiple dirty cops. The show has made sure to note how is not one bad cop, but how the system is failed (like athena knowing those who almost shot her family were barely gonna be punished). The only time i have thought the copaganda was a little too much was the storyline of finding Emmett’s killer (because the guy arguably did more for the people than a cop ever could, and he wasn’t a danger to society anymore. Athena knew that, putting that guy in jail was purely for revenge which is icky. And he helped kids in need). The rest i think is fair to say that most of the time we don’t deal with cops in the show lmao Athena is usually there to help in the emergencies too. Let me be clear when i say there is levels of copaganda, but is not what the show is overall. Firefighters surely do deserve the love. And hey! I think is nuanced and well that the one cop on the show is a black woman (the community most negatively affected by cops) who became one BECAUSE cops didn’t do right by her people (like ignoring a black girl who disappeared when she was a child). The answer maybe is not to join the corrupted system, but multiple people have the mindset of “join them to change the system from within”. So its interesting that the only cop pov we have comes from that, not a blindly romanticization of cops. And i also give kudos that they never “corrected” May disliking cops. They said “she has many valid points” and respected it. Let’s give a little more credit to the show here on that front!!!!

I have made so many posts now but i really dont hate the writers for what they did with taylor, just how they ended it. Most of my posts have been me annoyed by the audience response to her character too more than the show itself lmao. Overall i did agree taylor and buck had to break up. I just hated how it happened bc it was disrespectful to what her character had been until then.