S05.E08: The Quiet Ones

[txhorns79]

Quote

A gang killing leads Carlos to new information on his father's murder. TK contemplates a major life decision as Owen is determined to get Austin's first responders' health care coverages increased.

Airing 11/18/24.

[Kleav]

Oh, writers. It just doesn’t work that way. 

[agathapenny]

22 hours ago, Kleav said:

Oh, writers. It just doesn’t work that way. 

Which thing, lol?

As predicted, Carlos is going to have a child forced on him and it's just going to be the absolute bestest thing that's ever happened to him! (Extreme sarcasm) 

These people never go on calls anymore. 

So is it the boss or the partner who's the mole inside the Rangers? Right now, my money's on the boss. I'm really not sure what the point of this storyline is. It seems so separate from everyone else.

They seem to be floundering for stories for just about everyone, honestly. Even Owen's storylines have been on the stupid and boring side. Who really cares about him and his horse? Marjan and Paul are glorified extras, as is Judd. Heck, Wyatt has had more to do than the three of them combined this season.

And Tommy's final story is breast cancer? Arrrgggh!

Very disappointing for a final season.

Edited November 20 by agathapenny

[PupCal]

TK and Carlos shouldn't have gotten married.

[fastiller]

7 hours ago, Kleav said:

Oh, writers. It just doesn’t work that way. 

 

It's like they watched the movie Dave where the stand-in POTUS had his accountant come over to the WH and find a ton of $$$ from the US budget.  Except then it was a frelling accountant and not a bunch of first responders.

 

5 hours ago, agathapenny said:

Which thing, lol?

As predicted, Carlos is going to have a child forced on him and it's just going to be the absolute bestest thing that's ever happened to him! (Extreme sarcasm) 

These people never go on calls anymore. 

So is it the boss or the partner who's the mole inside the Rangers? Right now, my money's on the boss. I'm really not sure what the point of this storyline is. It seems so separate from everyone else.

They seem to be floundering for stories for just about everyone, honestly. Even Owen's storylines have been on the stupid and boring side. Who really cares about him and his horse? Marjan and Paul are gloried extras, as is Judd. Heck, Wyatt has had more to do than the three of them combined this season.

And Tommy's final story is breast cancer? Arrrgggh!

Very disappointing for a final season.

Didn't dying CI say the partner's name as he died?  Though it could be the both of them I suppose.

Last week Wyatt and this week Owen: once again, Vega has her medical details shared.  Like was there even a mention of "Capt. Vega has said I can discuss this with you Mr. Mayor and the ENTIRE CITY COUNCIL"?  And if not, couldn't there have been?

[iMonrey]

9 hours ago, agathapenny said:

So is it the boss or the partner who's the mole inside the Rangers?

It's the partner, Campbell. Which I predicted a couple episodes back. I knew something was up when they cast Parker Young, I just didn't know if he'd end up being someone Carlos had an affair with or the person who murdered his father. Or both.

9 hours ago, agathapenny said:

I'm really not sure what the point of this storyline is. It seems so separate from everyone else.

It's weird that half this episode was spent on a case that does not involve fire and rescue calls. It's like the show forgot what kind of procedural it is. Or maybe they are testing the waters for a Texas Rangers spin-off.

[eel2178]

4 hours ago, fastiller said:

It's like they watched the movie Dave where the stand-in POTUS had his accountant come over to the WH and find a ton of $$$ from the US budget.  Except then it was a frelling accountant and not a bunch of first responders.

Why didn't they just hold a fundraiser? Once they had come up with the $150K, Tommy could get the experimental treatment as a private pay patient.

Oh, and an experimental treatment can't claim it has a 97% success rate. It can only say that the results so far have been very successful. If the treatment had been around long enough to have that many long term survivors, it would have already had FDA approval and been promoted to the standard treatment.

[txhorns79]

14 hours ago, PupCal said:

TK and Carlos shouldn't have gotten married.

Both seem rather checked out of their marriage.  It doesn't seem either learned much from therapy.  TK appears ready to assume guardianship of a three(?) year old without seeming to have much idea as to what that entails, or what Carlos thinks.  (Does their condo even have a second bedroom?)  Carlos remains obsessed with his father's killer, even though realistically, he should not be anywhere near that case after nearly MURDERING AN INNOCENT PERSON(!!!!) over it.      

15 hours ago, agathapenny said:

Heck, Wyatt has had more to do than the three of them combined this season.

It is striking to me, especially as compared to the original, how little they have developed the 911 side of things.  Unlike on the original where they have a number of recurring characters, they essentially just have a giant room full of extras here with a monotone Wyatt. 

 

9 hours ago, fastiller said:

Last week Wyatt and this week Owen: once again, Vega has her medical details shared.  Like was there even a mention of "Capt. Vega has said I can discuss this with you Mr. Mayor and the ENTIRE CITY COUNCIL"?  And if not, couldn't there have been?

 Owen had his cause.  Everything else is secondary.  I can honestly say I think if you asked Owen after they won, he would have completely forgotten that the whole thing was supposed to be about Tommy.  And when everyone suddenly has a huge deductible for their insurance plan because of the massive expansion in coverage, Owen will be first in line to protest. 

Edited November 19 by txhorns79

[marceline]

14 hours ago, PupCal said:

TK and Carlos shouldn't have gotten married.

Thank you! I feel like I'm watching two teenagers who got married after prom. It's like they never talked to each other about the important stuff and now they're spouses dealing with stuff that should've been brought up ages ago. Didn't they start off this season in therapy? How long have they been married?

Edited November 19 by marceline

[eel2178]

9 hours ago, fastiller said:

Didn't dying CI say the partner's name as he died? 

Why didn't they take better care of him? The doctor said he was going into multiple-system organ failure, yet she did nothing to correct that. Put him on a ventilator or even ECMO and pump him full of vasopressors and blood products while resting his kidneys with dialysis. It is possible to reverse if treated quickly and efficiently. She just waited until he arrested and then pretended that CPR might bring him back after all his organs were fried.

[gonzosgirrl]

I just DGAF about Ranger Carlos. I didn't sign up for yet another soap opera cop drama. Where are the 911 calls and rescues?

 

[agathapenny]

14 hours ago, fastiller said:

Didn't dying CI say the partner's name as he died?  Though it could be the both of them I suppose.

I missed that he actually got the name out before he croaked. Wonder if it's really that simple or a misdirect. Though I guess they don't have much time left for red herrings.

[iMonrey]

5 hours ago, marceline said:

19 hours ago, PupCal said:

TK and Carlos shouldn't have gotten married.

 

When did Carlos' father get murdered, before or after the wedding? Because, to be fair, neither would have anticipated that. 

[sweetandsour]

Carlos' father was murdered before the wedding.  TK and Carlos were going to postpone and cancel the existing arrangements, but Carlos' mother never questioned that the wedding would proceed and it ultimately did.

I like Benito Martinez as much as the next person, but the only way it would make sense to spend this much time finding their murderer in the last season is if it were Owen.  And they definitely knew this could be their last season when they were making it.

I was so second-hand embarrassed that dozens of grown adults executed this storyline of gaining greater insurance coverage so quickly.  Everything about it was wrong wrong wrong.

They paid Henry Ian Cusick to be in two episodes and he was barely even in this one.  Nor did it matter that he played this peripheral character no one was interested in - could have just hired an unknown day player.  Yet they didn't want to pay Sierra McClain.  Make it make sense.

[marceline]

23 hours ago, fastiller said:

Last week Wyatt and this week Owen: once again, Vega has her medical details shared.  Like was there even a mention of "Capt. Vega has said I can discuss this with you Mr. Mayor and the ENTIRE CITY COUNCIL"?  And if not, couldn't there have been?

Not to mention they were live streaming the proceedings so millions of people were learning about her cancer diagnosis.

[bilgistic]

Around here, we mock Carlos's perpetual grimace and his partner's fart face.

[iMonrey]

10 hours ago, sweetandsour said:

They paid Henry Ian Cusick to be in two episodes and he was barely even in this one.  Nor did it matter that he played this peripheral character no one was interested in - could have just hired an unknown day player.  Yet they didn't want to pay Sierra McClain.  Make it make sense.

I don't know who Henry Ian Cusick is but I forgot that Adam Baldwin is on the show sometimes.

Without knowing the whole story I don't know if it's fair to blame the show about Sierra McClain. She's the only one in the whole cast who turned down the offer to return. It's easy to say the show should have just paid her whatever the hell she was asking for, but that's not how TV works. I doubt she was offered any less than, say Natacha Karam, Brian Michael Smith, Brianna Baker or Mateo Chavez, and they all accepted what was being offered. 

Godspeed, I just hope she has other opportunities if she can afford to turn down work.

[Jillybean]

Maybe next, Owen can fix the entire U.S. healthcare system!

[txhorns79]

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I don't know who Henry Ian Cusick is

He played Desmond on Lost.  I think that was one of his biggest roles. 

 

5 hours ago, bilgistic said:

we mock Carlos's perpetual grimace

Ha!  I think a lot of that is due to the actor's limited acting abilities.   

[tennisgurl]

As it turns out, the healthcare system is super busy to fix, barely an inconvenience, as long as you can give a big speech in font of the entire city counsel and a bunch of people on the internet! I thought that it would turn out that they would hold a big fundraiser and have a sort of celebratory end of show scene where people that they've saved in the past all come back to donate, but no, its yet another big speech for Owen. 

Carlos and TK never should have gotten married, or at least they should have waited, even before Carlos's dad was killed. They never talked about anything important, kids, their busy schedules, how to deal with fights, I guess they were too busy with near death experiences to have some real talk. Its hard to even be totally on anyone's side when both of them are being the asshole. TK just deciding to try to adopt his toddler brother without even thinking of talking to Carlos about it is a messed up thing to do, and Carlos is barely functioning as a person or husband. 

The opener was actually pretty good, it did a good job at building up tension and the guy playing Julio was really good in his limited screen time, it makes me sad that we never get actual calls or saves anymore. Its sad to see this show go out on such a low note, we never get actual saves anymore, everyone who isn't Owen, Carlos, TK, or Tommy is a background character, and all they get is melodrama and horse whispering.  

No surprise at all that the partner is a mole, no way do they hire Parker Young and not give him something meaty. I suspected him from day one but him telling Carlos how little he knows about him just sealed it.

Edited November 22 by tennisgurl

[Kel Varnsen]

On 11/19/2024 at 1:11 PM, eel2178 said:

Why didn't they just hold a fundraiser? Once they had come up with the $150K, Tommy could get the experimental treatment as a private pay patient.

Oh, and an experimental treatment can't claim it has a 97% success rate. It can only say that the results so far have been very successful. If the treatment had been around long enough to have that many long term survivors, it would have already had FDA approval and been promoted to the standard treatment.

I don't really understand how paying for medical treatment works, but if something is experimental why would you have to pay for it? Doesn't that mean they are experimenting on you?

[mrsbagnet]

On 12/8/2024 at 6:06 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

I don't really understand how paying for medical treatment works, but if something is experimental why would you have to pay for it? Doesn't that mean they are experimenting on you?

If the drug is experimental, then it hasn't yet been FDA-approved for treatment of that specific disease (it may have already to been approved to treat something else). The drug is still being tested. If the patient can get into a clinical trial, then they can participate in the testing for low or no cost, or even get paid to participate.

If the patient can't get into a clinical trial, the drug company may make the drug available to them, but the patient will likely have to pay for it. Their insurance company won't cover it.

Edited December 10 by mrsbagnet

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, mrsbagnet said:

If the drug is experimental, then it hasn't yet been FDA-approved for treatment of that specific disease (it may have already to been approved to treat something else). The drug is still being tested. If the patient can get into a clinical trial, then they can participate in the testing for low or no cost, or even get paid to participate.

If the patient can't get into a clinical trial, the drug company may make the drug available to them, but the patient will likely have to pay for it. Their insurance company won't cover it.

If you are in a clinical trial though, isn't there a random change you end up in the control group and get no medicine?

It's interesting that the experimental drug thing just seems to be bad writing, because Tommy not having insurance coverage is basically the plot of Breaking Bad, and if I recall it was just that the Doctor that Walter wanted to use wasn't in his insurance company's network or something.

[mrsbagnet]

3 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

If you are in a clinical trial though, isn't there a random change you end up in the control group and get no medicine?

It's interesting that the experimental drug thing just seems to be bad writing, because Tommy not having insurance coverage is basically the plot of Breaking Bad, and if I recall it was just that the Doctor that Walter wanted to use wasn't in his insurance company's network or something.

Your question made me curious, because it seems unethical to use a placebo in a cancer clinical trial. I found this info on the National Cancer Institute website:

 https://www.cancer.gov/research/participate/clinical-trials/how-trials-work

Quote

Placebos are rarely used in cancer treatment clinical trials. In most cases, a group of participants will receive the new treatment, and another group will receive the already approved standard treatment. Researchers will then compare the two treatments to see if the new treatment will become the new standard. 

If placebos are used, you always will be told ahead of time and can ask questions before deciding to join the trial. The use of placebos in a clinical trial will be covered in the consent form.

 

[KeithJ]

As people said above, that’s just not how it works.  What bothered me the most is that they kept saying Vega couldn’t get treatment which wasn’t true.  She couldn’t get the experimental treatment (which almost no insurance plan would cover) but regular chemo was still an option.

As for Carlos and TK, I really hope they break up.  TK is going to force his little brother on Carlos and he’s just going to go along with it.

[possibilities]

I'm surprised people think it would be okay to just pack TK's brother off to boarding school. In my mind: what monster would refuse to take the kid in? Do I understand correctly, that most people think that if their step-sibling was left without parents, they'd refuse them? I thought most people would automatically take in an orphaned relative, and TK's brother is essentially orphaned by his father's incarceration. 

I thought the problem was that the treatment for Tommy that the insurance paid for was not giving her very good odds of surviving, whereas the experimental treatment was looking much more likely to save her life. I agree the way they set it up was a bit contrived, but IRL there are often limits on what insurance will pay for, and that these limits are often not in the best interest of the sick person, and I wish they had chosen a different set up to better illustrate that actual problem.

[Kel Varnsen]

7 hours ago, possibilities said:

I agree the way they set it up was a bit contrived, but IRL there are often limits on what insurance will pay for, and that these limits are often not in the best interest of the sick person, and I wish they had chosen a different set up to better illustrate that actual problem.

It seems like just a few tweaks to how they presented the insurance thing would have made it a lot less dumb. I mean, just don't call it experimental treatment and you basically have the set up of Breaking Bad.