S07.E13: It Wasn't About Hockey

[mxc90]

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Brett, Foster and Kidd take a road trip to Indiana for a getaway and encounter a bus accident involving a boy's hockey team that will leave them scrambling and relying on their instincts to save those hurt in the accident. The rest of Firehouse 51 competes in the annual Chili Cook Off.

[rhys]

I !liked all the MacGyver girl power stuff going on. Was a bit surprised no one's phone worked out there.

chili cook off was a disappointment with the Sonic guy.

[mxc90]

The accident and editing was confusing. I heard the horn usually used for a semi-truck, then see a school bus come crashing from the opposite direction, miss the tractor and hit Sylvie's car. So what did the Bus hit to cause it to flip? I'm not buying he was just going fast in the fog (Sylive's lights were on from the opposite direction for him to see).

How many times did we need to hear the Hockey team won and no one gave them a chance to win? Hope they lose in the next round. 

It took the players and coach quite a while to realize Hunter was missing? Hunter should transfer to another school and find better friends.

Why did they bother give Blane the creepy/serial killer vibe before the accident?

It's nice to know State Police ignores this area.

Was this an audition for another spin off (Chicago High School)? 

Didn't Stella drive in the same direction the coach/player were running?

Another girls night. Stella is getting her wish to get over Kelly

Coach better take the other job. I doubt the school will keep him after the massive lawsuit they are going to receive.

Didn't care for the chili contest.

How many players are there usually on a High School Hockey team?

Another shameless Walmart plug.

Edited February 14, 2019 by mxc90

[jewel21]

I really enjoyed this episode. It had me hooked from the beginning to the end. I much prefer episodes where they deal with one big accident that lasts the whole episode. It allows me to really get into the story line and the characters. Too many times, they get a couple of quick calls, we get like two minutes with a victim and that's pretty much it. It doesn't allow us to really get invested. I thought this was a nice change. 

Having the accident victims be hockey players kept reminding of me of the Humbolt accident here in Canada. Thankfully, this episode ended with no fatalities. 

[preeya]

Why didn't they use Brett's car to go for help instead of running?  Did I miss something?

[mxc90]

1 minute ago, preeya said:

Why didn't they use Brett's car to go for help instead of running?  Did I miss something?

The bus crashed into her car. 

[LittleIggy]

Good episode. Tuesday is the most adorable doggie!

[sheetmoss]

2 hours ago, mxc90 said:

Was this an audition for another spin off (Chicago High School)? 

That would be Hoosier HS! 😉

Edited February 14, 2019 by sheetmoss

[MaryHedwig]

14 hours ago, mxc90 said:

Didn't care for the chili contest. 

I didn't like that Boden dipped his dirty spoon in each one of them.

Edited February 14, 2019 by MaryHedwig

[Guildford]

It was the least offensive of the Chicago shows, that's about all I got. I really enjoyed the girls, that's how you do good strong female's and female relationships. Didn't know the writers had it in them.

[mxc90]

6 hours ago, MaryHedwig said:

I didn't like that Boden dip his dirty spoon in each one of them.

Thanks for pointing this out. I FF through the last part. What so-called professional taster uses the same spoon for each pot? Then the rest of the dopes each grab a spoon and start eating from the pots (no bowls needed for this segment). They are taking this "we are  family" proclamation a little too far.

Boden is assigning teams and he pairs Ritter with Tuesday.  But Ritter drops out because the dog added an "ingredient" (Yes! A chew toy). Is the dog an equal member or not?

How did Tuesday reach the pot without knocking it over?

Edited February 14, 2019 by mxc90

[preeya]

The plot should have been that someone other than Cruz or Otis decided to use the Oxtails and wound up winning the contest.

[iMonrey]

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Why did they bother give Blane the creepy/serial killer vibe before the accident?

I didn't get what was happening either. When they were talking to the tractor driver before the bus crashed they were giving him the side-eye like he was a weirdo or something and nothing ever came of that. Why were they suspicious of him?

Also, did this school bus not have a back door? Don't all school buses have back doors? Did I miss something? It was a school bus, right?

The chili cook-off was dumb but harmless enough. I guess they felt the need to offset the drama of the bus crash. I could have lived without it.

[leslieo54]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I didn't get what was happening either. When they were talking to the tractor driver before the bus crashed they were giving him the side-eye like he was a weirdo or something and nothing ever came of that. Why were they suspicious of him?

Also, did this school bus not have a back door? Don't all school buses have back doors? Did I miss something? It was a school bus, right?

The chili cook-off was dumb but harmless enough. I guess they felt the need to offset the drama of the bus crash. I could have lived without it.

Soooo many things that made no sense - the serial-killer vibe morphing into injured Santa, the 7-player hockey team (who cared *nothing* for poor Hunter, as they couldn’t even look around their tiny group and notice he was missing), the school bus that had neither a back door nor a roof emergency exit that would have eliminated all the hoisting and climbing (especially for poor injured-arm dude, whom I obviously care even less about than Hunter, because I have no idea of his name... tbh, they’re all Aiden/Jayden/Kaiden to me), nobody using their phones’ flashlights when looking for bags/equipment/suddenly missing players (something that might have been really helpful when done by a trained EMT to make sure nothing was stuck in a person that might cause sudden massive bleeding when pulled out), Stella not encountering the running coach and player... Sigh, why can I not quit you, Chicago shows? Obviously no amount of stupidity is going to turn me off. 😁

[Waterston Fan]

Didn't like this episode at all. Too many ridiculous things concerning the bus accident that most of you have commented on. 

[CoyoteBlue]

The bus storyline kinda creeped me out since it was only two years ago that my Hoosier hometown's basketball team's bus flipped so it was a very eerie deja vu. 

This was very much a non-entity of an episode. Did they need that much prep time for next week's Fire-PD-apalooza?

[iMonrey]

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This was very much a non-entity of an episode. Did they need that much prep time for next week's Fire-PD-apalooza?

Oh Geez, please tell me they're not doing another dumb cross-over "event."

[izabella]

I liked this episode, and seeing the EMT's kicking ass in the wilderness. 

I think it was Sylvie's hesitation with the tractor guy that made him seem menacing.  He wasn't aggressive.  Yeah, late at night on a dark road nobody drives on, that feels sketchy.  They could have offered to drive back to the highway, or forward, so they could call police to come help him.

A lot of you rightly noted that Hunter needs some new friends because they didn't notice he wasn't with them.  I missed that Stella was staying behind to get the bar delivery, so I thought she was with them in the car when the bus crashed into it.  For a good ten minutes, I was thinking Sylvie had forgotten all about her and would suddenly rush around trying to find her and she'd be dead.  Then Stella appeared at the bar.  Ha. 

[WinJet0819]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this has got to be first Fire episode that didn't involve a call involving the firehouse.

This wasn't a bad episode, as for once, the women (excluding Gabby storylines) were the centerpiece of the episode. Not relationship drama or politics. The men at the house just had a harmless chili cook off. 

As others have mentioned, I will say it's amazing how this crash happens on road that is basically deserted, even by state patrol. And considering the time it took them to get from Chicago to that spot on the road, they weren't that far out, so it's hard to believe they were in the middle of nowhere. Stella had time to drop off the glasses at Molly North, sign for the drinks at Molly's, and still get out to that road without seeing the coach or player running in that direction, and beat the medical personnel.

And a hockey team with 8 players? Just no. Considering hockey teams consist of 4 offensive lines with 3 players each, 3 defensive pairings with 2 players each, and goalie and a backup, there should have been 20 players. And it would make no sense for the additional 12 players to travel by another bus.

And did Stella get a raise or something or did she total her car? Last year, when Brett's friend Hope came and screwed with Stella's paycheck, she mentioned that she was going to miss a car payment for her Toyoya Corolla. Now, she's driving Jeep which would cost more, and which just happened to be so convenient for being able to rock a heavy bus to free a bag filled that had an epi pen.

[Sake614]

Plot holes aside, I genuinely liked this episode. It held my interest from start to finish and even left me slightly tearu at the end. I honestly didn’t know if both boys would make it.

The chili cook off was dumb but harmless. And the girls got to be the heroes for a change. 

[Dowel Jones]

5 hours ago, WinJet0819 said:

As others have mentioned, I will say it's amazing how this crash happens on road that is basically deserted, even by state patrol.

Something similar actually happened to me when I was a firefighter in California way back 15 years or so ago.  I was a  captain on a hand crew, and our group was traveling from one camp to another in the Davis (by Sacramento) area.  There was a detour on the main road, and we then missed the turn to get back on the highway, and ended up on some country lane.  Sure enough, the lead car comes up on a two car accident, and they had been there more than a few minutes.  Unlike the show, we had cell service, and, although we didn't quite know where we were, we had GPS, so the Command Center could start a couple of helicopters and the local fire department.  The injuries were very serious, and I remain convinced that they were all lucky that we took a wrong turn that night. 

[torqy]

On 2/15/2019 at 9:16 AM, icemiser69 said:

They need to put an end to the crossover episodes.

To the best of my knowledge, Chicago PD is the only one of the three in syndication.   The crossover Chicago episodes are brutal to watch in syndication.  Anywhere from a half to two thirds of the story lines are missing, because there are just highlights from Chicago fire and/or Med being used as introductions into the Chicago PD episode. 

The Chicago PD/SVU episodes are also brutal to watch since the episodes don't air back to back in syndication.  Some cable channels only carry one of the two series, which is even worse.

Crossover episodes have been problematic since Homicide: Life on the Streets and Law and Order days and even before. It's rare to catch them together in the correct order. Why bother when Brett can show up on Med, Halstead (the cop) shows up on Med, the crew from PD shows up on Fire or Med, yibble, yibble, yibble. 

[Sake614]

Since will and jay are brothers, it seems inevitable that jay would show up at the hospital once in a while. Same when gabby was on Fire. Antonio was her brother, why wouldn’t he occasionally visit her At the station? 

Similarly I don’t necessarily have an issue with crossovers. St some point, people are going to cross paths in the  same city. Especially if there’s some major crisis and it’s all hands on deck. 

Where I fall foul is the contrivance of it all and the frequency. Like intelligence is the only police division in the entire city and 51 is the only firehouse.

[WinJet0819]

5 hours ago, torqy said:

Crossover episodes have been problematic since Homicide: Life on the Streets and Law and Order days and even before. It's rare to catch them together in the correct order. Why bother when Brett can show up on Med, Halstead (the cop) shows up on Med, the crew from PD shows up on Fire or Med, yibble, yibble, yibble. 

Not to mention, when characters do show up on other shows, it makes no sense why they're there. Like Al or Kim appearing on Med to arrest a mother who stole her child from her husband. How does that fall under something that Intelligence would do? Or Mouch appearing on PD handling his own team. That's just not possible. I especially love how Brett seems to have so many different partners when she comes to Med. I can't remember seeing her ever bring a victim to Med with Dawson as her partner. And she hasn't done it with Foster either. So is she pulling extra shifts to work with different partners? 

And it's also funny how there was no reaction from Antonio to his sister leaving to take a job in another country. I don't even remember seeing him appear at the hospital when their father was stabbed. And he never brought that up on P.D. Or Jay not mentioning at all in P.D. what Will was involved in with the crime family.

It appears that outside of the crossovers, though the shows are in the same Chicago universe, they exist and operate separately. And characters from other shows are just thrown in for the hell of it, with no sense of fluidity.

[Guildford]

57 minutes ago, WinJet0819 said:

Not to mention, when characters do show up on other shows, it makes no sense why they're there. Like Al or Kim appearing on Med to arrest a mother who stole her child from her husband. How does that fall under something that Intelligence would do? Or Mouch appearing on PD handling his own team. That's just not possible. I especially love how Brett seems to have so many different partners when she comes to Med. I can't remember seeing her ever bring a victim to Med with Dawson as her partner. And she hasn't done it with Foster either. So is she pulling extra shifts to work with different partners? 

And it's also funny how there was no reaction from Antonio to his sister leaving to take a job in another country. I don't even remember seeing him appear at the hospital when their father was stabbed. And he never brought that up on P.D. Or Jay not mentioning at all in P.D. what Will was involved in with the crime family.

It appears that outside of the crossovers, though the shows are in the same Chicago universe, they exist and operate separately. And characters from other shows are just thrown in for the hell of it, with no sense of fluidity.

Their best effort was Jay Halstead over on Med trying to crack onto Nat & taking her to hockey games, while on PD he was in the middle of a messy breakup with Lindsay over his surprise wife. It was weird, and dumb. 

This year he's been on Med more than having anything to do on PD. His Dad died and he's grieving all over the shop on Med and fine and dandy on PD. 

Or the time they had Halstead ride up to a fire on a motorbike on Fire just because fans asked for it & they have never mentioned him or seen him riding a bike on PD. 

It makes no sense most of the time and then all the timelines are screwed. Fire started this year six weeks after Gabby absconded and PD started with the same day as they left off and then next week they had a crossover and were on the same day. It was stupid & they think fans don't care, but it just frustrates fans. You can't pick and choose when to be in sync and then ignore it the rest of the time. 

[Dowel Jones]

4 hours ago, Sake614 said:

Where I fall foul is the contrivance of it all and the frequency

Contrivance?  On Chicago Fire?  Perish the thought!

[Spike]

I think this was episode 14?  If the duffel bag with the epipen was under the bus, wouldn’t the epipen be crushed?  And if just part of the duffel bag was (not the part with the epipen), couldn’t they just cut the bag open?

[athelyna]

Neither the paramedics nor the hockey team had a first aid kit in their vehicles?  It seemed strange they were using hockey pads to stop the one kid's bleeding.  Would they really move that kid out of the bus?  I know they were complaining about the light, but I'm not sure how outside was better.  Seems like it would make more sense to keep him inside the bus where he would be at least somewhat sheltered from the elements - it's not like the bus was teetering on the edge of hill or something, it was pretty stable on it's side.

I assume the rest of the boys needed to make up an actual full hockey team went home with parents, so only having 8 kids didn't seem that odd.  It was a little odd the coach didn't do a head count and notice one the boys was missing, but I'll give him that the crash shook him up and he wasn't thinking straight.  Can't give Brett and Foster a pass, because once they were told there were 9 people total on the bus I would assume they've been trained or at least been at enough accident scenes to know to double check and count the kids getting off the bus. 

Nothing about the timing or geography made any sense to me as someone who used to live in Indiana.  I'm not familiar with Fowlerton, but google tells me there is a town of that name.  The main roads nearest to it are IN-26 and I69.  Brett mentioned getting off an exit from I65.  If Brett's hometown is supposed to be the actual Fowlerton then from Chicago you would drive down 65 to Lafayette, get off at the 26 exit and drive til you hit some county road that goes the couple miles down to Fowlerton.  It's an 1.5 hr drive from Lafayette by IN-26, and Lafayette is about 2hrs from Chicago.  So if Kidd didn't even leave Chicago until after Brett and Foster were in the accident, it would be at least 3 and half hours before she showed up.  Cross country runners would have hit the interstate or somewhere with better cell signal by then.  And Brett said Fowlerton is 40 minutes from Muncie, which makes it seem like they are using the actual Fowlerton location, but then I have no idea why they were on the random back county road that's 5 miles from anything.

Also, Indiana isn't Wyoming or Idaho or something where you just have huge swaths without cell coverage.  I can maybe believe the girls not having signal because they picked a carrier with the best signal in their part of Chicago and it's different from the best carrier in that part of Indiana, but none of the local boys could get a signal?

What person from Illinois doesn't know the word Hoosier?  Kidd didn't say it like she was asking about the origins of the word, but like she didn't recognize Brett saying she's a Hoosier as meaning she's from Indiana.

[iMonrey]

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Also, Indiana isn't Wyoming or Idaho or something where you just have huge swaths without cell coverage.  I can maybe believe the girls not having signal because they picked a carrier with the best signal in their part of Chicago and it's different from the best carrier in that part of Indiana, but none of the local boys could get a signal?

Yeah they really need to stop using "no service!" as an excuse in TV and movies. I've driven the width of southern Illinois where it's absolutely desolate - not an exaggeration - and had cell phone service the whole way. That school bus crash was just an hour or so outside of Chicago judging by the time it took Stella to get there. 

[MakeMeLaugh]

Just watched this last night and Show had me at eyelash curler and tweezers. Without looking too closely at the giant contrivances, the episode was quite entertaining imo and a nice showcase for the actors. Not having the Gabby character made it possible.

[Kel Varnsen]

I actually liked the bus crash plot. Even though it didn't make a ton of sense it was exciting. They could have just gotten rid of the chili plot though. If they needed something to break up the tension have it be Stella's adventures getting out of the city.

On 2/14/2019 at 12:21 PM, iMonrey said:

The chili cook-off was dumb but harmless enough. I guess they felt the need to offset the drama of the bus crash. I could have lived without it.

The only way the Chilli cookoff would have worked for me would have been if Otis wanted to ise Guatemalan insanity peppers, or if the chief had a wooden spoon he carved from a bigger spoon. Or if the dog had spoken to the candidate guy and it was Johnny Cash's voice.

[Guildford]

5 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

I actually liked the bus crash plot. Even though it didn't make a ton of sense it was exciting. They could have just gotten rid of the chili plot though. If they needed something to break up the tension have it be Stella's adventures getting out of the city.

The only way the Chilli cookoff would have worked for me would have been if Otis wanted to ise Guatemalan insanity peppers, or if the chief had a wooden spoon he carved from a bigger spoon. Or if the dog had spoken to the candidate guy and it was Johnny Cash's voice.

I'm kinda surprised, and eternally grateful that the winning recipe didn't turn out to be the 'super secret special recipe of St Gabby of the flame'....the writers missed a golden opportunity there to remind us of her omnipresent brilliance. Maybe they are finally letting go.....

[Dowel Jones]

11 hours ago, Guildford said:

Maybe they are finally letting go.....

They could have gone full throttle to the dark side and have one of the crew say "There's a little Gabby in each of these recipes."

[NYCFree]

On 2/19/2019 at 5:23 PM, iMonrey said:

Yeah they really need to stop using "no service!" as an excuse in TV and movies. I've driven the width of southern Illinois where it's absolutely desolate - not an exaggeration - and had cell phone service the whole way. That school bus crash was just an hour or so outside of Chicago judging by the time it took Stella to get there. 

I have spent a lot of time in the Catskills, just two hours northwest of New York City and the service is very spotty. You may get service in one place, but not another, depending on your carrier.

My son would schlep a chair a quarter mile up a hill to get service (T Mobile) while my husband and I (AT&T) could get service inside the house.

I did like the fact that the women were the lead stories this week.