#911 s9

[inferno-ontherocks]

911 | 9x02 Spiraling I did not like the space storyline... except for this. Love this

[sam-stew]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

I'm posting this before the 9th chapter technically, but I'll be posting here between chapters of my fic doing polls and sneak peeks. Once this fic is done, I'll do another one of these most likely but that's a long way off.

[incompententententen]

9-1-1 S9: My thoughts

!! FINALE AND JUST GENERAL SPOILERS !!

This show has been a wild ride. The good, the bad, the weird, all of it. I'm not a huge fan of post Bobby's death, I think there have been good arcs since but most are just meh.

Firstly, introducing a drug problem with less than a quarter of the final season left IN A SHOW THAT IS NINE SEASONS LONG IS MENTAL. Buck was done so dirty for that. And I'm not saying I didn't like the idea, I just think the execution could've been better if there was literally any time to breathe this season. All of the arcs, especially Maddie's feelings of isolation after becoming management at the call centre, Buck's with Theo and parenthood, both of them with their parents divorce, the Wilson Family with Hen's autoimmune disease and Eddie's with ice, would've been so much better and impactful if we and he actually had time to see the inbetween and aftermath rather than just the key moments in a final series that just felt like a montage.

Athena becoming a detective was another thing I would've like'd to have seen built on. For the past 8 years, despite having (more than) ample opportunity to doubt her career choice, she never does. When she was offered a promotion, she didn't want it because she enjoyed being on the ground. Her change of mindset is a last minute decision where she briefly mentions she doesn't feel like she's making a difference while talking with her old partner in her coma. Her reasoning in itself is fine but we never see why she's been thinking about this, which is the main thing the show does. If Hen is feeling left out the emergencies parallel that, with people being overlooked and hurt, which prompts her thinking and changes are actions. If Eddie is having problems with Christopher, then the emergencies will parallel that, often with parents and their kids, which prompts his thinking and changes his perception. That is the fundamental script of the show and it makes zero sense for Athena to make that decision with no prompts. These could've been great jumping off points for her to be considering her life and job in the force moving forward and make her decision more emotional and better supported by the narrative.

I was going to write more but I realise my gripes with series' 8 and 9 are pretty much the same thing over and over. There's no build up, which makes the narrative fly by and the big moments fall flat. Not to mention, makes the episodes, frankly, boring. I found I was reaching for my phone frequently and zoning out often because I simply wasn't hooked like I had been for most earlier points of the show. Obviously, there were moments I enjoyed, Chim's tea party and just general parenting with Jee and Nash in particular. But I feel my negative thoughts outway my positive ones and as a result, left me feeling unfulfilled and empty after finishing a show I actually love. I really wish more show's nowadays would: A, be finished and B, actually put in the effort to make a solid ending cuz I CAN'T KEEP DOING THIS 😭.

...

And finally, because we all knew this was coming, i CANNOT believe buddie ISN'T cannon. missed opportunity of the CENTURY.

[incompententententen]

s9 ep12 Buddie roadtriiippppppppp

I hope they kiss.

[buckitweride]

It took me a while to watch the last two episodes of 911 s9 because I was on vacation when they aired. Then when I finally watched them, I was too busy with vacation to get my thoughts down.

So here’s my belated reactions to s9’s ending, in no particular order:

Very happy with Athena’s detective origin arc. It was about time- it’s what she should be doing.

Casual MayRavi!!! I would like to see the details of their relationship explored more but glad they went there at least

Too many feelings about the Theo storyline. I like the kid and I like the idea of unexpected-kid-acquisition for Buck. But hate how it happened. Way too tragic. Also, you mean to tell me neither of his parents had any siblings, grandparents etc around? How is Buck the defacto caregiver in this situation? Makes no sense on top of being sad as hell.

I think the showrunners expect many more seasons. No advancement on the BuckTommy arc and no LI for Eddie tell me they don’t wanna wrap those things up too early when they expect many more renewals in the future. Just my guess.

Maddy’s mixed feelings realizing she is “the boss” now was highly relatable for me personally. Really enjoyed that.

I would like to see Eddie get stabbed and writhe around on the floor at least once a season. For enrichment. The man knows how to bleed lol.

I’m sure there’s more but this is what I can recall rn.

Going into this hiatus, you’re never gonna catch me looking up any interviews with the showrunners or actors, because absolutely no one seems to want to keep watching this show if they also keep up with the non-canon chatter around it. Fandom is the ✨worst✨thing about this show.

I’m planning to watch s10 because when you eliminate all the background noise about the show, it’s still entertaining enough week by week to keep going, for me personally. I’m wary about the Theo storyline because after Bobby’s death, I really didn’t want another super tragic element hanging over the entire next season. But I’ll give them a chance and see what they do with it.

[b0ngsmoker]

i hate how the writers treated buck during the auction episode. i feel like its also not characteristic of chimney to pressure buck into "objectifying himself" (exact words). idk i just feel like we can move on from the "buck is nothing but a hunk of meat" plot lines

[elinordashwoodkin]

You know how Tim was obsessed with needing to “raise the stakes” in this show?

Well, do you know what *would* raise the stakes? putting two characters who work on the same team together as a couple.

How would they navigate adjusting to that new environment at work? What hangups within the whole system would they experience?

You think a suspension or medical leave is stressful for the team dynamic now? Try Buck or Eddie getting transferred out of the 118 and having to decide how to cope with the team being separated for a lot longer than a temporary period of time. Imagine the tension of having to decide who would stay and who would go.

You think it’s already stressful when one of them gets hurt on a call? Imagine if one of them wasn’t there and don’t hear about it until later because they were on shift. Oh, Eddie finding out about Bobby over the phone in the middle of the night was bad, but imagine Eddie getting pulled into his captain’s office to be told that his boyfriend was seriously injured on a call and rushed to the hospital. Imagine the panic, the guilt, and anger over not being there to have each other’s backs.

Imagine the struggles of transitioning from what they thought was a strong, close friendship to more. Imagine them tiptoeing around important conversations because they’re too scared of messing things up for the *two* children that are involved in their lives and potential relationship now. Imagine the fear of repeating the same mistakes they’ve made in their previous relationships with each other.

There is genuinely so much potential just sitting there getting wasted by *not* letting them be together, and it’s pushing the show closer and closer to “jump the shark” territory as Tim scrambles to come up with increasingly ridiculous ideas of how to keep the show interesting that either never go anywhere beyond a 2-3 episode vacuum, or last a while throughout the season, but never really stick the landing the way they should, leaving things *just* shy of being the same level of good quality melo-dramedy that the show was a few seasons ago.

[elinordashwoodkin]

Can I be *kinda* negative for a second?

I need some of these journalists who actually get a chance to speak to Tim to grow a bit of a backbone and start pushing him.

Don’t just ask him his thoughts on Buddie canon… take it further and ask why he thinks that when it’s obvious that the overwhelming majority of people watching are constantly let down and upset with plotlines because he’s refusing to go through with it.

Don’t just ask him if it’s intentional that he wrote something a certain way; ask him why he felt the need to write something in a way that he knows is intentional only for him to refuse to follow through on it.

Don’t just ask him why he made certain choices; ask him why he spends a whole season inserting direct visual and textual callbacks, themes, and plot points that all point to one singular conclusion for each character’s plotline, yet the only one he actually ever follows through on fully is Athena’s.

We need to start bullying showrunners again. We need to start actually holding them accountable for things again. Not just laughing off every bad writing decision they make, and making up excuses as to why something had to be “pushed back.” When are we going to stop believing that he “is pulling for buddie” when he constantly jerks the story away from them, and when are we going to *start* believing that maybe for some reason he actually *does* believe that there is nothing wrong with what he’s doing because he genuinely enjoys mistreating the fans that keep him employed by actually engaging with his show and keeping it going.

And while I don’t condone negativity towards the cast for writing decisions, nor do I ever blame them for things that I don’t like because 9/10 times they do not have the amount of power that people think they do, but I do think that journalists who get the chance to have these private conversations with them need to start asking *them* hard questions too. Not just the same “Oh, are you open to buddie?” or “Oh, is buddie gonna happen?” where we get the same answers over and over.

We need to start asking *them* where the hesitation is coming from in the writers room. We need to ask them why they are making certain acting choices in certain scenes: are you being directed to do so? Is this in the script? Are you being told that this is building to a bigger picture? If this is supposed to have been building to a bigger picture, why did it not go there in the end? If it’s none of those things, then why are you making those choices? If you believe they’re true to the character, then why are the leading to nothing?

We’ve gotten so many iterations of the same interviews over, and over, and over, and over, and I know that sometimes journalists questions are pre-screened which I think can be a bit ridiculous, but if they have the chance I feel like they need to take it. Especially these ones who have built a whole acquaintance with them over the years, and treat these interviews like a catch-up chat, who enjoy using their surface level buddie questions as clickbait for their articles when they themselves know they’re just saying the same exact things over and over.

Until the fire is lit under that man, he’s just going to continue doing things like this, and while I don’t mean we should send him horrible, vile messages, or try to organize massive hashtag campaigns, or even orchestrating fake charity events to try and convince him to do what we want like certain people do, I think it does help to voice displeasure. Any media created for entertainment is susceptible to criticism, and if we were able to make that man sweat over Bobby last year, then we need to carry over that same energy about everything else.

Why is Maddie a glorified extra at this point? Why are we spending so much time on extras’ storylines, dedicating entire episodes to them while our mains are all scrambling for actual depth to their arcs? Why are we leaving May stranded as a prop in her brother’s story for over half a season when she herself is a main before we finally give her a rushed storyline in the last couple episodes? Why are we constantly and directly bringing up the Buddie elephant in the room and doing nothing with it? Why are we still even dabbling with the idea of a new third party love interest for Buck or Eddie when we know the fandom will absolutely hate it, and it will inevitably lead to skme of the bad parts of the Buddie fandom treating whatever actor or actress at hand like trash when they’re just doing their job? Why are we deciding to throw massive brand new character-altering storylines in the last two episodes that derail everything else that’s going on (as much as I love Theo, this is not an end-of-season plotline that should have been sprung on everyone when Tim randomly decided to write it while they were filming two episodes before it was meant to be introduced, this should have been a long-term development over the course of at least the spring half of the season)?

I’m not going to say any more because I do genuinely not like being negative or sounding like I’m dooming, but it really does genuinely get to a point sometimes where I can’t make excuses anymore, and I think this recent trend of fandoms playing it too safe has really affected things in a negative way.

But that’s just me.