S07.E05: You Don't Know Me

[lianau]

35 minutes ago, Empress1 said:

I have a family friend who came out in his late 40s/early 50s after 20ish years of marriage and three kids. He’s married to a man now. (His ex-wife was deeply upset, though they’re okay now. The three kids are grown and there’s at least one grandkid. The three kids were teens when this all happened and were cool with their dad’s sexuality from jump.)

I liked how the show handled Athena and Michael , that they allowed Athena to be angry and not going all prideflag waving immediately  because often the partner who comes out gets all the support while the partner left behind is just supposed to suck it up and go with the program. 

[Snazzy Daisy]

20 hours ago, Jillybean said:

We also have no recall about Marisol.

3 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I don't remember where she came from either.

Eddie met Marisol on the job. She called 911 when her brother was buried in insulation in the attic - he tripped on the hose and the hose kept spraying insulation. Marisol was doing construction on that house. 118 had to break the ceiling to save her brother, undoing her works. Later, Eddie and Buck came to help Marisol repair the damages.

One day, Eddie and Marisol ran into each other at a hardware store. Christopher encouraged his dad to ask Marisol out.

[possibilities]

edited to get rid of double post

Edited April 15 by possibilities

[shapeshifter]

35 minutes ago, lianau said:

I liked how the show handled Athena and Michael , that they allowed Athena to be angry and not going all prideflag waving immediately  because often the partner who comes out gets all the support while the partner left behind is just supposed to suck it up and go with the program. 

I had completely forgotten about that, and Rockmond Dunbar (Michael) was in 69 of 104 episodes!

[kwnyc]

Marisol had bought her own house and her idiot brother was doing insulation in the attic and got trapped there. The 118 came to help them out and after destroying her ceiling they all came back and helped fix it. 

[I Want My MBTV]

On 4/12/2024 at 1:50 PM, Lindz said:

Since they bit off Titanic, I thought they were copying some horror movie with the kid. Why'd she destroy the bear & throw the mug? & the screaming when at the foot of their bed??? Um. WHY?!! Just. Weird. It went from that to she found her parents dead, where's the connection??? 🤨

I thought they were doing a ripped from the headlines thing and the "Mysterious Case of Natalia Grace" - her adoptive parents said they woke to just finding her at the foot of the bed (with a knife) and also said she got violent with their other children amongst other things.  That whole thing is a cluster and you can't really believe anything the former adoptive parents say but that's what this was reminding me of. 

[Demian]

On 4/11/2024 at 10:18 PM, BooksRule said:

Eddie: "I've just got a reservoir of Catholic guilt just lying dormant. Just waiting to be activated."

Buck: "Like sea monkeys."

Eddie: "No."

 

Ha ha!

Buck's subsequent throwaway observation -- "Episcopalians don't have guilt, which I don't feel great about" -- is the low-key most hilarious line of the episode.

[Attatude]

Am I the only one who felt they screwed up the entire episode?  Buck has always been promiscuous with women, and now suddenly with no warning or lead up except nearly crippling Eddie the week before, he’s gay? Is he also going to start sleeping around with men now too?  He is desperately in need of therapy before he makes another big life decision.  Jumping from one kind of relationship to another isn’t cool, it’s sad. He should resolve the fact that he nearly died and before that, he had a brother who died and no one told him until he was an adult.  It seems like they are so eager to give him an exciting new story, no one realized the man is floundering and grabbing at lifelines.  I’m glad his sister and best friend are on board, but doesn’t anyone realize how fragile he is?  I predict the Tommy relationship could go very badly too. If it doesn’t, it shows how unrealistic the writing is because in real life, it would not go smoothly.

The episode seemed rushed and fragmented.  Karen had good reason to fear the new foster child. I’m glad it worked out but they were given very little information about her before she moved in.  

I have nothing else to say because I don’t remember anything more about the episode.  Those two stories were handled very strangely.

 

[CoyoteBlue]

4 hours ago, Attatude said:

He is desperately in need of therapy before he makes another big life decision.  Jumping from one kind of relationship to another isn’t cool, it’s sad. He should resolve the fact that he nearly died and before that, he had a brother who died and no one told him until he was an adult.

He's.. been successfully in therapy since 2020? All that was seasons ago.

[Attatude]

Quote

8 hours ago, CoyoteBlue said:

He's.. been successfully in therapy since 2020? All that was seasons ago.

 

Who said therapy was successful? His behavior doesn’t show success. He still goes from one bad relationship to another. Stalking Eddie and Tommy was creepy.   Hurting Eddie shows he’s stable?  He’s still a mess and a new relationship isn’t going to fix him.  He is getting a mature love interest but what does Tommy get? Why would a confident, mature successful man want to be with Buck?  I understand what they are trying to do but the writing isn’t there.  I love this show and I don’t want to see it get cancelled, but going soapy on viewers is not going to get them decent ratings. I worried they rushed this story and are setting themselves up for a ratings fall. The season is too short and they didn’t have the time to set this up in a plausible way. 

[iMonrey]

14 hours ago, Attatude said:

Buck has always been promiscuous with women, and now suddenly with no warning or lead up except nearly crippling Eddie the week before, he’s gay?

First of all, at most he's bi. Second of all, straight men develop crushes on other men all the time. Don't believe me? Ask any sports fanatic. We don't know how far this thing with Tommy will go. Once it becomes actually intimate, Buck might discover he's not into it after all.

That said, the show has been laying the groundwork for something like this to happen for years. Buck's chemistry with Eddie certainly hasn't gone unnoticed, and he has yet to have a long-term, successful relationship with a woman.

1 hour ago, Attatude said:

 I love this show and I don’t want to see it get cancelled, but going soapy on viewers is not going to get them decent ratings.

On the contrary, there is a fanbase out there that has been waiting for something like this for a long time. This might actually boost ratings. And the show has been "soapy" since day 1 anyway.

[Attatude]

6 hours ago, iMonrey said:

First of all, at most he's bi. Second of all, straight men develop crushes on other men all the time. Don't believe me? Ask any sports fanatic. We don't know how far this thing with Tommy will go. Once it becomes actually intimate, Buck might discover he's not into it after all.

That said, the show has been laying the groundwork for something like this to happen for years. Buck's chemistry with Eddie certainly hasn't gone unnoticed, and he has yet to have a long-term, successful relationship with a woman.

On the contrary, there is a fanbase out there that has been waiting for something like this for a long time. This might actually boost ratings. And the show has been "soapy" since day 1 anyway.

We will see how they do in the ratings next week. I hope you are right and I’m wrong.  I don’t have a lot of patience for Buck anymore.  I like him but he’s so frustrating.  I’m more an age where I would think of him as a son rather than a peer and if it was my child, I would wonder when he’s ever going to grow up. This could mature him. Hopefully it will be a positive outcome and the fan base who supports it is larger than those who will be disappointed (not at the gay/bi story but at the way the show is going).  If someone watches for the rescues, it seems like they are focusing too much on relationships and less on the action. The cruise ship story was an exception.   

 

[kwnyc]

21 hours ago, Attatude said:

I don’t have a lot of patience for Buck anymore.  I like

Truth. Buck is a world-class idiot. That is his whole character. It has led to some interesting story lines, but I don't see him ever growing up. And as for his ambition to be a captain, he is SO not suited for the role.

Everyone loves Buck because he has a good heart, but he also has no impulse control. I've accepted that that's the character, but IRL, I'd stay far away from him! ;-)

[fastiller]

31 minutes ago, kwnyc said:

Truth. Buck is a world-class idiot. That is his whole character. It has led to some interesting story lines, but I don't see him ever growing up. And as for his ambition to be a captain, he is SO not suited for the role.

Everyone loves Buck because he has a good heart, but he also has no impulse control. I've accepted that that's the character, but IRL, I'd stay far away from him! ;-)

WRT the area I bolded, a few years back I took a course in screenwriting for television.  The instructor said over and over that characters on TV aren't meant to change.  If they change, we'll stop watching.  I replied that this makes for very boring & 'why watch' TV.  Maybe Buck is one of the characters that proves that 'rule'.

I'll give them a couple-three episodes to see how/whether this plotline works itself out.

[Irlandesa]

Buck can be impulsive but I'd argue he has grown quite a bit over the course of the series from dealing with his unusual childhood trauma, ditching his womanizing to date towards a potential relationship more than just to get laid, and crafting solid relationships where he's even considered a potential guardian should something happen to Eddie. 

But more importantly, I don't think deciding to date a man is an example of refusing to grow up or impulsivity.  It's growing and opening himself to new facets of himself. People generally don't date people they know they won't be attracted to on a whim, so I think it's a pretty safe bet that Buck is romantically interested in Tommy. 

And I do not think this show is going to be "whoopsie, we've changed our mind and he's not bi any longer."  That doesn't mean Buck won't date women again.  If things with Tommy don't work out, he probably will.  But this creative group is going to keep him bi.

On 4/17/2024 at 10:45 AM, iMonrey said:

That said, the show has been laying the groundwork for something like this to happen for years. Buck's chemistry with Eddie certainly hasn't gone unnoticed, and he has yet to have a long-term, successful relationship with a woman.

Buck's in his early 30s, and while he hasn't had a multiple-year-long relationship, I think dating Taylor for a year probably was pretty significant, and he probably would have dated Abby for quite a while if she hadn't ghosted him after her mother's death.

[fireice13]

On 4/17/2024 at 8:54 AM, Attatude said:

I love this show and I don’t want to see it get cancelled, but going soapy on viewers is not going to get them decent ratings. 

They've already been renewed for season 8 and all 5 episodes this season have had some of the best live+7 ratings they've ever had. 

 

On 4/17/2024 at 5:18 PM, Attatude said:

If someone watches for the rescues, it seems like they are focusing too much on relationships and less on the action. 

 

The show has always been about the characters and relationships. Yes, the rescues can be a big part of the storyline but the whole point of the show is telling the story of these characters. I've been wanting a bottle episode for years where they have a shift with no calls and we just see them in the firehouse together the entire episode. 

[lianau]

To be honest, I miss the  wacky rescues. This season had the cruise ship and not much else. 

[Whodunnit]

On 4/12/2024 at 10:56 AM, iMonrey said:

Did the social worker happen to mention she was that traumatized? I

IRL my sister went through something like this and unfortunately the social workers only know what they're told by the kid's previous social worker. They were not prepared and trying to make it work played a role in the end of her marriage.

[KeithJ]

On 4/17/2024 at 5:18 PM, Attatude said:

 If someone watches for the rescues, it seems like they are focusing too much on relationships and less on the action. 

More seasons and more money for salaries leaves less money for action scenes so we get more drama scenes.

[Irlandesa]

Plus, the first three episodes of the season involved a massive set piece in the cruise ship.  I imagine that ate up quite a bit of the budget which is why the rescues in the past two episodes were smaller.

[Empress1]

On 4/18/2024 at 9:18 PM, Irlandesa said:

he probably would have dated Abby for quite a while if she hadn't ghosted him after her mother's death.

Yeah, he was all in with Abby. Their age difference might have become an issue eventually, but he loved her so much it took him months to accept he’d been ghosted. He hasn’t been promiscuous with women for most of the show at this point, since he started taking his job seriously.

On 4/18/2024 at 3:31 PM, kwnyc said:

And as for his ambition to be a captain, he is SO not suited for the role.

Agree. He’s not a leader, yet. People don’t follow him the way they follow Bobby, and it also seems like he cares too much about being liked. Leaders sometimes have to make calls the people under them don’t like, and I don’t think Buck has the confidence to do that. He could get there, but he’s not there yet.

[Attatude]

On 4/18/2024 at 12:31 PM, kwnyc said:

Truth. Buck is a world-class idiot. That is his whole character. It has led to some interesting story lines, but I don't see him ever growing up. And as for his ambition to be a captain, he is SO not suited for the role.

Everyone loves Buck because he has a good heart, but he also has no impulse control. I've accepted that that's the character, but IRL, I'd stay far away from him! ;-)

That is exactly how I feel about him.  I’ve invested so much energy in his character, I’m burned out on him.  IRL given the job he has, he would have matured into it or he would save been fired.

On 4/25/2024 at 8:27 PM, Irlandesa said:

Plus, the first three episodes of the season involved a massive set piece in the cruise ship.  I imagine that ate up quite a bit of the budget which is why the rescues in the past two episodes were smaller.

The producers chose to go Titanic on their budget. It paid off in terms of finding new viewers and generating ratings but the rest of the season suffers. Rescues don’t need to be expensive to be exciting.

[Attatude]

On 4/19/2024 at 4:37 PM, fireice13 said:

They've already been renewed for season 8 and all 5 episodes this season have had some of the best live+7 ratings they've ever had. 

 

The show has always been about the characters and relationships. Yes, the rescues can be a big part of the storyline but the whole point of the show is telling the story of these characters. I've been wanting a bottle episode for years where they have a shift with no calls and we just see them in the firehouse together the entire episode. 

Without meaning to, you proved what I’ve been trying to say.  The first three episodes got record numbers of viewers because of the cruise ship arc. People tuned in for the action.  The numbers dropped drastically at the 4th episode.  

The show is about relationships in context of the jobs they have. It’s. It a relationship show that happens in an emergency employment setting.  I agree there are some excellent, strong relationships on the show.   Hen and Karen, Athena and Bobby, Maddie and Chimney, Eddie and Christopher.  Then there are the friendships between the characters.  I get that.  But Eddie and Buck also had a strong friendship and they destroyed it a little when Buck stalked him and hurt him.  I don’t think it’s humorous or good writing. It ruined Buck’s character for a lot of viewers. Stalking is a triggering event and should be used for bad people, not a main character. Having Buck find a new side of himself isn’t going to fix that blunder. It’s just a bandaid slapped on over his messy personality and previous bad decisions.

They could have handled his coming out so much better. They could have led into it and built a story. Instead they just slapped it on over his immature behavior and I personally find that sloppy writing.  I understand a lot of viewers like the way it was handled and were waiting for it.  They are the lucky ones, then.  But for me, it is just too soapy for a series like this one that has always handled sensitive storylines with grace.  When Josh Russo was tricked and beaten when meeting a criminal who posed as a date, the story was beautifully crafted and shocking.  That is the kind of writing I expect for Buck.

[jcbrown]

On 4/19/2024 at 4:37 PM, fireice13 said:

The show has always been about the characters and relationships. Yes, the rescues can be a big part of the storyline but the whole point of the show is telling the story of these characters. I've been wanting a bottle episode for years where they have a shift with no calls and we just see them in the firehouse together the entire episode. 

Oh, I think such a bottle episode could be great!

[Irlandesa]

1 hour ago, Attatude said:

The first three episodes got record numbers of viewers because of the cruise ship arc. People tuned in for the action.  The numbers dropped drastically at the 4th episode.  

It depends on which numbers you're looking at. The first three episodes weren't even usual rescue episodes.  They were a well-advertised disaster event featuring the show's leads/main couple.  Total viewers went up but the demo went down.  Conversely, even though the total viewers may have gone down for the next two episodes, the demo went back up. 

 

 

 

[Attatude]

15 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

It depends on which numbers you're looking at. The first three episodes weren't even usual rescue episodes.  They were a well-advertised disaster event featuring the show's leads/main couple.  Total viewers went up but the demo went down.  Conversely, even though the total viewers may have gone down for the next two episodes, the demo went back up. 

 

 

 

The elusive, outdated demo.  Leaning too heavily on the demo and ignoring the reality of streaming is why network television is fading.  Who do they think watches network television?  It’s Grandma and Grandpa.  Who has the money to spend on ads? The elderly. If networks rely on the demo why do they advertise medications for older adults?  Teens and young adults don’t watch network in the same way as they watch streaming.  Most of the young adults I know don’t have access to network television.  If the networks ignore that and rely on the demo, they will wonder where their jobs went in five to ten years.

[possibilities]

My understanding is that the demo is based on who is influenced by advertising vs who is set in their ways and not really susceptible. Apparently, the research shows that people over a certain age are brand loyal, having already tried the options and decided what we like.

I don't know how that explains the ads for medications and services that would typically only be of interest to elders, but perhaps those ads don't bring in as much money as ones that can be marketed to younger people.

[Irlandesa]

1 hour ago, Attatude said:

 Leaning too heavily on the demo and ignoring the reality of streaming is why network television is fading.

ABC does not ignore streaming.   ABC releases the DVR/Hulu numbers lumped together.  Ep 3 was the highest rated.  Ep 4 was second highest in total viewers.

Its streaming performance likely influenced its quick renewal.

22 minutes ago, possibilities said:

I don't know how that explains the ads for medications and services that would typically only be of interest to elders, but perhaps those ads don't bring in as much money as ones that can be marketed to younger people.

I think your age reasoning is true for many products but not all.  Medications are likely the one thing that do appeal to older viewers which is why you see more of those ads on shows like Blue Bloods. 

[Attatude]

5 hours ago, possibilities said:

My understanding is that the demo is based on who is influenced by advertising vs who is set in their ways and not really susceptible. Apparently, the research shows that people over a certain age are brand loyal, having already tried the options and decided what we like.

I don't know how that explains the ads for medications and services that would typically only be of interest to elders, but perhaps those ads don't bring in as much money as ones that can be marketed to younger people.

They are also limited by the businesses that want to advertise on their shows. Advertising has changed.  I don’t think drug companies should be marketing directly to patients, but it must bring in business or they would not buy space on television.  Maybe they are advertising services and drugs for the elderly to a younger demographic to reach their parents through the children.  As fast food becomes increasingly more expensive, those businesses may cut back their ads as well.  Or it may get even worse as they compete for customers.  

I’ve heard that older people are brand loyal, but older people I know are venturing out and trying all kinds of new things. They are shopping online more, though, so ads for brick and mortar stores make less sense.   The networks and advertisers are still working out current shopping trends.  

[Nessa]

What a frumpy looking wedding dress Maddie is wearing.

[Attatude]

10 hours ago, Nessa said:

What a frumpy looking wedding dress Maddie is wearing.

It’s very lacey.  Watch the video.

https://people.com/jennifer-love-hewitt-on-9-1-1-wedding-between-maddie-and-chimney-exclusive-8641071

[fastiller]

10 hours ago, Nessa said:

What a frumpy looking wedding dress Maddie is wearing.

I thought so too.  To me it looks like she's wearing her mother's wedding dress.  In my head the storyline goes: Maddie wears Mum's wedding dress because many many years ago it was decided she would do so; Maddie really doesn't want to wear the dress; wedding as currently planned goes AFU; wedding is postponed; at a later date/time (during the same ep) Maddie & Chimney do the wedding THEIR WAY and Maddie wears the dress she actually really wants to.

Edited May 1 by fastiller

[jcbrown]

It is certainly not flattering. It makes her look very short-waisted.

[txhorns79]

On 4/12/2024 at 12:12 AM, Lady Calypso said:

 

The Buck stuff was done fairly well. Buck/Tommy's first date was a disaster and I could definitely have passed on Buck's cringeworthy "I'm an ALLY!" declaration (twice), but Tommy's reaction was very well done to the whole situation. He recognized Buck was figuring stuff out, especially with his adverse reaction when Eddie/Marisol showed up, and he decided to leave. I'm glad he explained that he left primarily for Buck's comfort, rather than being offended by Buck's rather strong reaction. 

I've been catching up on episodes.  My main surprise with this particular storyline is that Tommy didn't back off because he suspected Buck had feelings for Eddie.  To me, that would make more sense because he saw how jealous Buck was when Eddie made a new friend.