A Joke About Not Knowing The Number Is Too Easy #911 #3weekroundup #review #recap #FOX

A Joke About Not Knowing The Number Is Too Easy #911 #3weekroundup #review #recap #FOX

All pictures courtesy of FOX 

It’s unbelievable how time flies. Just a few minutes ago I was on vacation and now I’m here, writing this stupid post about one of FOX’s new shows and debating whether I’m going to do a post on their new reality competition The Four (not all that great of a show; Diddy’s too overbearing). You’ll have to excuse me as I haven’t written (read: typed) a single word since a week before Christmas, save for the occasional Twitter post. I’ve taken notes about some of my upcoming projects on pieces of scratch paper and bills that God knows I’m never even gonna open (the problem goes away if you ignore it long enough, I swear), so I have been keeping up with pseudo-writing, but nothing substantial. Frankly, I’ve got a lot of writing to do this year and hardly enough time to do it. And because I decided to take an extra week of vacation due to an illness (first time I’ve been really, truly, ultra-sick in eight years), I am trying to shake off the brain fog and yips that come from being out of practice. OK, so what the hell was I talking about? Oh yeah, FOX’s new show 9-1-1. So, is this new show about first responders a heartbeat away from brilliance or is it ready for the cancellation body bag? Let’s find out together!

FOX’s 9-1-1 is the latest production from the studio’s beloved producer Ryan Murphy (and cohorts) that takes a look at all the dramatic and emotional goings-on that all first responders must go through on a daily basis. A show packed with a few heavyweight TV stars, it focuses not just on cops or firefighters but on the full gamut of individuals tasked with the job of saving our lives and keeping the peace. The first episode opens with a voice-over from TV and Murphy-productions veteran Connie Britton (Nashville, American Horror Story season 1, Friday Night Lights) who gives a rundown on what she sees as the two emergencies that people must deal with on a daily basis. The first is the emergency (read: immediacy) of everyday life. Connie’s character Abby Clark is a 40-something recently dumped single woman who has to take care of her Alzheimer's-stricken mother in her medium-sized apartment. No kids, hardly any prospects for the future and still crushing for her ex-boyfriend, she has to somehow find a way to make it through each day without losing her shiznit.

Abby; Connie Britton Is Looking Really Good These Days

The second emergency is an actual emergency and “is the kind you call [her] about.” Things like car crashes, fires, etc. She is a 911 operator (for the remainder of this, I will only use the hyphens when referring to the show as a whole) for LA county. We take her first call—a young boy who hit his head in the pool and currently isn’t breathing—and meet our main team of firefighters.

Our firefighters/EMTs are led by Peter Krause (most recently of ABC’s The Catch; also Six Feet Under) who plays Bobby Nash, a middle-aged recovering alcoholic who had dropped so low at one point that he lost his family and his job as a firefighter, but who now goes to weekly confessions at his preferred Catholic church. The job, which he loves, drove him to drink but it also drove him to stop drinking because of said love. He’s an all-or-nothing guy with a good head and an understanding heart, and he is the captain of his squad.

Next we have Hen played by Aisha Hinds who has appeared in a ton of stuff and is usually the bald black chick. Here she plays the bald black chick firefighter. In the first three episodes little about her is really explored save for the fact that she feels comfortable enough to give men around her unsolicited advice while not playing into the stereotype of the bossy black woman.

We also have Howie “Chimney” Han played by Kenneth Choi who we later learn is playing into the exact love-archetype laid out for Asian-American men. While he is trusted by his captain, there are limitations to what he can. He is set-up as a possible joke-sponge for future episodes.

And finally we have Evan “Buck” Buckley played by Oliver Stark, king of Winterfell—the north remembers. He is literally the young buck of the team and, yes, you guessed it, is written as the overly rambunctious know-it-all millennial who just wants to use his status as an LA firefighter to get laid often! Awash in a severe hero complex, he wants to one day be the old guy with all the coolest stories that the young women and the kids love to hear. And yes, that means that Captain Bobby both sees a little of himself in Buck and sets up a father-figure dynamic between them that the show will profitably plunge for the duration of its existence.

Back to their first rescue, we see the team respond to the downed swimmer and work to save his life as the boy continues to turn blue. It is here where Abby reminds us that as soon as help arrives in-person, usually the callers hang up the phone before the 911 operator knows the outcome of the call. To her, it’s like reading a really good story and then having the last few pages ripped out. Unfortunately for her, on the calls where they do stay on the line the outcome is not so hot. Where Bobby and his team are able to save the swimmer, Bobby’s attempts to stop a suicidal young woman/junkie from jumping to her death prove meaningless as he watches the girl plummet through the sky. Abby heard that.

Hey, yo, Bobby!

Losses are a possible everyday occurrence for Bobby, but ones with such a visceral connection cause him to go to the church where he talks about the drinking history. That was his coping mechanism. Now he journals all the deaths.

Buck’s “coping” mech is getting laid. He takes the firetruck for a breezy spin around the city before sinking into something young and brunette and spinning back to the firehouse where he must hear about Chimney’s girl problems. Chimney is an embellisher who tells his girlfriend fanciful stories about his job that aren’t always true, to make himself sound more heroic. We later learn that she does seem to have some sort of hero fetish. Anyway, we see Buck get a warning about using the truck for extracurriculars.

Abby takes a call from a guy who sounds like a stoner, who tells her that he thinks someone flushed a baby down the toilet because he can hear it crying in the wall. The team goes to the apartment complex only to confirm the insane hypothesis and introduce us to our final main character Police Officer Athena Grant, played by Angela Bassett. Working the beat, Athena is there to do preliminary investigative work on how a baby could’ve gotten into a toilet pipe and prevent higher levels from flushing. While the team saws the baby out, Athena discovers an immigrant father and his young daughter trying to hide her afterbirth bleeding. It turns out that the girl gave birth to an unwanted baby and threw it down the open toilet pipe of an unfinished apartment upstairs. They rescue the preemie who comes out elongated and in need of NICU care immediately. The mother also needs care which leads to Buck getting angry that the girl could treat her child like that and refusing to let the girl ride in the same ambulance as the baby. He and Athena get into it about age and rank and cops vs. firefighters and, frankly, I thought it was a rather stupid argument, but they wrote it, so...

With our journey ended at the hospital, we follow Officer Athena home where we learn that she and her husband are going through drama on account of him finally admitting he's gay. He tells the kids, precipitating an argument about the proper time to tell them. She thought it was too soon for them to handle that, and that he lied to her. Her husband counters with something about how she knew the truth the whole time but didn’t want to admit it.

As we dig farther into the personal lives of our mains, we see Abby’s mother is so unwell that she has an at-home nurse that ain’t worth a hill of beans and who is quickly replaced. Abby goes back to work and takes a call about a huge snake being wrapped around some woman’s neck and the team goes to the girl’s place to find it filled with uncaged snakes—some illegal—that look dangerous. Unable to pry the snake from around the woman’s neck, Buck cuts the snake’s head off and receives a lecture from his older superiors. But at least he’ll get to bang snake lady. In fact, he does bang her on a rooftop after taking the firetruck on a spin once again. That three-strikes system goes out the window when Bobby finds him up there midday and fires him for being an idiot.

So, while Buck brainstorms with Hen on how to get his job back, a give-me lands in his lap when a little girl calls 911 about a break-in. The girl tells Abby that the house is new, and she doesn’t know her address yet but that she can hear two men rummaging around downstairs. They call mom but she left her cell at home. So Abby makes a dispatch call to the nearest cop (Officer Athena) and tells her to look for a house with a young girl’s bike in the driveway. But even knowing the neighborhood that could take too long, so Athena gets an idea.

She calls her girl Hen who is busy on a car crash call and asks for help. Hen shoots that call to Buck who drives the firetruck to Athena’s rescue. The plan: drive around with sirens blaring in the firetruck to see if they can sonar the girl’s specific location. Yes, I used sonar as a verb. This way, the burglars won’t suspect the cops and won’t elevate the danger.

Well, the plan works until the girl goes downstairs and tries to sneak away. The burglars get her and grab the phone from her. Abby talks them down from killing the girl and tells them that the cops are on their way, but she’ll help them escape if they leave the girl unharmed. They fall for that and end up wandering out into the arms of Athena. But the “mastermind” burglar won’t give up easily and escapes onto his motorcycle. He is about to run over and gun down Athena when Buck shoots him with the fire hose. The kid is reunited with her mother, the day is saved and Buck keeps his job... for now.

Left to Right: Bobby, Buck, Hen, Officer Grant

Episode two sees Buck realizing the weightiness of both Bobby’s words and of his job as he suffers through his first lost save-e. A roller coaster malfunction sees a black guy treated like every black guy in a horror film pre-Get Out. His overweight surviving buddy is left to dangle in the upside-down roller coaster while Buck tries to strap a harness onto him, so that he and the other passengers can be safely lowered off the stalled ride. Unfortunately the big fella freaks and says that he can’t extend his hand out to the safety harness, then plummets to his death. While Buck deals with that, we learn throughout the episode that the guy previously had suicidal tendencies and that his black friend had convinced him to get out and start living again only after the big man had been locked away in his apartment for a few months. So even though it was Buck’s job to save the dude regardless, it wasn’t fully his fault. Still, he gets told by Bobby and Chimney that he’ll never forget the look on the man’s face as he fell those few stories. Even Officer Athena comes by to give her two cents about the badges and the uniforms they wear and how taking them off at the end of the day is supposed to be symbolic for letting go of the day’s drama.

Meanwhile, Abby is still suffering through her mother’s suffering. Luckily, things start to look up when she gets a new nurse who is patient and much more caring than the previous lady. This woman’s caring reminds her of how loving people can be and causes her feelings for Buck to surface. On episode one she talked to Buck during that home invasion and he told her that the kid was safe, the burglars caught and the cop unharmed. She made an instant connection with him because she finally got the end of a good story. Seeing him on TV after the roller coaster thing makes her want to reach out to him even though he looks a little too young for her. She risks her job by calling him later in the episode on his private line and chatting with him about how tough the job is and it seems like they’re making a true connection.

Meanwhile, Officer Athena and her husband are still arguing but try not to let their frustrations play out in front of the kids. They continue to attend couples counseling where she finally admits that she did know something but ignored the signs because she wanted children so badly and was aging quickly. She says she is willing to live a celibate life if he is, and then he drops the bomb that he met someone. Interestingly enough, earlier in the day she, Hen and Chimney got a call about some dangerous devil-dogs that attacked this man in a house. She gets the dogs some food and distracts them with that while the man climbs off the counter and flirts with Athena. Hen plays like her sista and asks why she gave no response to the man’s overtures. She wasn't into it. But as it turns out the man was actually a burglar and the dogs were trying to guard against him. They just let a burglar go. She eventually finds him later in the episode and brings him down.

Back to the EMTs and we learn two things: the kid (Buck) is suffering through a bout of the yips, and they deal with a lot of suicides in LA. After some therapy where he sexes up his therapist, and a refusal to climb the ladder to save a precariously hung scaffold worker, Buck has to rappel out of an apartment window and thrust-kick a guy back into his apartment and off of the ledge from which he’s about to jump due to his cheating girlfriend. The day saved, everything is right and everyone goes home. But only upon returning home does Officer Athena realize that her sick daughter (the eldest) has actually OD’d on something.

We pick up episode three with a bounce-house emergency. An idiot dad goes to play in one of those dangerous outdoor bouncy houses at his child’s B-day party. As it so happens, the house is right above a cliff on a windy day. Yeah, that happens. And yes, the dad is thrown out of the house. Chimney complains that he never gets to do anything cool because he must stay on-ground to work the wench while the others rappel down the side of the cliff to secure the kids and dad. There’ a bunch of cut-scenes back and forth to the wench to make it seem like Chimney’s job is so dramatic but it definitely isn’t.

Meanwhile, we pick back up with Athena’s 911 call. She and her husband go to the hospital where it’s revealed that the girl took some of Athena’s leftover pain meds from her dental work last year. She survives, but two big things come from this: Athena’s husband’s boyfriend/date arrives at the hospital with her husband, letting her know just how over her sham-marriage is, and the girl admits that she was being bullied at school which is why she took the pills. BUT she did NOT want to die... supposedly. In any case, Child Protective Services comes to talk to her about what happened and why she’s in the hospital because they have to by law.

Meanwhile, remember that stereotypical Asian male thing I referenced earlier? Well, Chimney is playing that to a tee. See, he tries impressing this white or Latina(?) woman by cooking and telling her the heroic embellishments about him rappelling down the cliff. Frankly, she is as regular looking as Wonder bread, especially knowing the kind of women they have in LA. There are models and wannabe-models on every corner. But he likes this girl. So much, in fact, that he proposes to her and she turns him down flat. Yep, Asian dudes never get the girl and that’s both in movies as well as in real-life statistics, which biasly show that black women and Asian men are the least sexually-desired groups worldwide. He gets so pissed that he goes out on a late-night drive to zoom away his frustrations. Some idiot drives in front of him, and he sees something in the middle of a busy highway and bam! He crashes and has to make a 911 call.

Is It Racist That This Is The Only Good Picture I Could Find Of Chimney?

Another crew comes, but he only wants Bobby and his crew to touch him. What’s wrong? A long pipe of rebar has speared through his skull making him into a human unicorn. They manage to cut it down far enough to pry him out of the car and get him to the hospital where they slide it out in surgery, but they then put him in a coma to see if his brain has been thoroughly damaged or not. Bobby tries to get his girlfriend to at least go to the hospital to see him but that skank even refuses that because she doesn’t want to be saddled with a possible cripple for the next few months or years. The episode ends with Chimney sorta waking or at least conscious enough to react to what his visiting team is talking about. All is well.

What’s my grade? I give it a solid B. OK, so this is not as genre-defining as many of Ryan Murphy’s other works. In fact, when I’m considering everything else that he’s had a hand in developing for the last 15 or so years—Nip/Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story, American Crime Story, Feud, Scream Queens—this is undeniably the most pedestrian, bland show of all of them. You’re not going to find potentially award-winning writing like on ACS, Feud or Nip/Tuck. You will not find biting or over-the-top satirical plotting and characters like in Scream Queens, AHS or Glee. And you definitely won’t find film-quality cinematography or artistic compositions like in ACS or Feud. But what you will find is an interesting look into a part of the first responder's jobs that you rarely see. With FX’s past show Rescue Me or NBC’s current Chicago Fire you mostly get firefighters being... well, firefighters. They either hung in the clubhouse or had the heavy gear on. Same with most cop shows which are about detectives and not beat cops which are two very different positions. And even medical shows tend to only show you the aftermath of a much crazier scene in the field. This, however, is like the before and in-between of all of those shows. I almost wish that they did something like what NBC has with its “Chicago” franchise and had multiple shows that rounded out the entire story of people. But I can accept this show for what it is. Even still, I see potential for a great many fissures going forward.

First off, as I was trying to say, this show is basically the legwork for those other traditional servicemen shows. So most of the stories will stop at the hospital doors if they ever get that far. Also, you’re not going to see some hard-hitting police work like you would on SWAT or Law and Order. This’ll be CIP stuff: drug-dealing on corners, people actively getting robbed, etc. So where most crime procedurals focus on the mystery of what happened and if justice will be served, this show is all adrenaline rush, baby! That can be good, but it can also get repetitive fast! Again, only three episodes have aired so far, and we’ve already seen a suicidal girl jump off a crane, a suicidal big man willingly fall to his death off of a roller coaster and a pissed-off pseudo-suicidal boyfriend threaten to jump off of a balcony. And that’s not even counting the faux-suicide overdose of Athena’s daughter. I most certainly get that it’s a huge issue from personal experience, but if the main emergency is always going to deal with someone threatening/wanting to kill themselves then it could get old and predictable.

Also, so far, the characters do not pop off the screen. They’re not wholly memorable nor offending. While I give a lot of positive points for their stories being highly relatable, they also haven’t trod any new ground like, say, Rescue Me did when it first came out so many years ago. The depiction of firefighters post-911 as not only being pissed about all the hero worship they received after the World Trade Center but almost showing them in an anti-hero light was jarring and riveting and kept the show going for a number of seasons. Here, there is no bite. It almost feels like while the adrenaline rush is good for that hour, there’s nothing to look forward to as soon as the credits roll.

It’s rather hard for me to critique this kind of work because, unlike Scream Queens or AHS or ACS or almost any of the other Ryan Murphy-produced shows that have come, this one is so inoffensive in every way. Ultimately it may suffer from its lack of forceful... je ne sais quoi. It’s a feel-good show that challenges nothing, makes a statement about nothing, wastes the talents of its considerably talented cast, has a point-and-shoot kind of film style and tastes like a lick of vanilla in a sea of nothing but vanilla ice cream.

Should you be watching? This ain’t a hard question for you to answer. If you aren’t pretentious about what you watch and want the jolt of OMG every week, then tune in. If you want a peek into the lives of first responders, then tune in. If you like easy characters that are going to give you a good chuckle now and then, or if you like seeing servicemen and women in some kind of uniform, then check it out. Again, I gave it a B, FOX has already renewed it, and I have enjoyed watching it every week and will continue doing so for the remainder of the season, so take that for what it is. But this’ll probably never get anywhere close to any awards and I doubt if it’ll be the talk-of-the-town come May. Check out 9-1-1 on FOX or FOXonDemand. New episodes air every Wednesday at 9/8c pm.

What do you think? Have you heard of FOX’s 9-1-1? If not, do you think you’ll check it out now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? What did you think? Am I being too hard on it and it’s your new favorite show? Do you think that Abby and Buck will hook up at some point during the season? And what kind of private life do you really think Bobby has? Let me know in the comments below.

Coming Soon

Check out my 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinary on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, “Do you know the number for 9-1-1?” 

'Dude, really?”

P.S. “Michael, nooooo! You promised not to use that joke in then title of this post.” I know but it was so easy and I couldn't think of a good sign-off. I'm so ashamed (weeps bitterly into his barbecue Pringles). I'll think of a better sign-off next time.

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