Tonight’s episode of 9-1-1 saw patient and 118 department alike facing their fears as sharks, spiders, and heights (oh my!) all made an appearance on the various calls.
Sharks in the Water
The 118 arrive to find a shark diver suffering from decompression sickness and unlikely to survive until the helicopter arrives. Fast on her feet (and going on experience), Lucy suggests they make a hyperbaric chamber in the field. The team rushes the diver to a nearby fish place and commandeers a freezer. Drilling a hole and using oxygen tanks, they stabilize the diver and slowly decrease pressure saving his life. As air transport arrives, the instructor comments he has no idea why the diver freaked out. The diver manages to whisper he has a shark phobia; diving was immersion therapy. While on the call, Buck is extremely formal with Lucy (very unlike Buck), and pretty much everyone notices.
Buck Comes Clean to Taylor
Taylor and Buck work on compiling their things (they now have double of everything, and it won’t be Buck’s couch that is staying) when Taylor notes that maybe the new firefighter needs a couch. Buck is more than awkward as he tries to act nonchalant about Lucy, but if Taylor notices, she doesn’t let on.
While Taylor is gone, Maddie and Jee swing by for a visit where we get much-needed Uncle Buck content and the Buckley sibling chats we so missed. Buck fills Maddie in on the kiss with Lucy, who suggests he come clean about it. Not wanting to keep secrets, Buck decides to come clean with Taylor, who is obviously angry that he chose to ask her to move in one day after it happened. She leaves for a night but ultimately returns (“You made sure I couldn’t leave”) for a hard conversation. Taylor isn’t mad about the kiss; she’s upset that it influenced Buck’s decision to ask her to move in because of his fear of abandonment. She reiterates that she isn’t going to leave, and he doesn’t need to be afraid.
Madney Is No More
Finally back in LA, Hen meets up with Chimney at his place, and Maddie visits Buck to catch up on everything that’s happened in the last six months. Sadly on the way home from Boston, the couple both realized they’ve grown apart and decided it was best to end the relationship. Of course, they’ll share custody of Jee, but Maddie is now on the hunt for her own place and jobless. Back at work, Chimney finds things much different with Eddie gone and two new team members. He’s also nervous about Maddie’s first few times alone with Jee and constantly checks his phone. He arrives home one night to find Maddie avoided giving Jee a bath, obviously still upset over the last time she was in that room.
Only a few nights later, though, Maddie goes into the bathroom alone and quietly works through the trauma of what happened. She’s about to accept it and realize she’s not the same person and in a much better place. Chimney finds Maddie giving Jee a bath when he comes home, both girls smiling and laughing together. Though they are no longer a couple, there are clearly no hard feelings between Chim and Maddie (thank goodness!).
Feel No Fear
A middle-aged woman begins to pump gas when a man points a gun in her face and demands her purse. She calmly refuses, and when he insists, she yells back that she feels no fear. He’ll have to take the purse. He steps closer, and she sprays first him and then herself with gasoline, kicking away the gun. She produces a lighter and threatens to set them both on fire as the gas station attendant arrives and begs her not to take the whole block with her. She apologizes and suddenly drives away. On the scene, Athena finds it odd the woman apologized and fled when she wasn’t in the wrong, so she heads to her home, where she finds a very worried sister. The woman, Pauline, arrived home smelling of gas, showered, and left before telling her sister anything. She relays the odd personality changes as well as a change in Pauline’s voice to Athena.
Meanwhile, the 9-1-1 call center receives several calls about a jumper who turns out to be Pauline. She herself calls, and, as the 118 arrive, she tells Josh she climbed on the tower hoping to feel some kind of fear. Learning of the caller, Eddie (still at the call center and going through it) overhears the woman’s conversation with Josh.
“If I operate out of fear, and it goes away, how am I supposed to operate?”
Buck and Ravi try to sneak up behind Pauline and pull her back, but Buck knows they are too exposed, and she might see them. Athena arrives and relays what she learned from the sister. Hen recognizes the various symptoms as symptoms (not that Pauline is going insane as she fears) and tries to talk her down by explaining the disease that can cause someone to stop feeling fear. All Pauline hears is that she’s broken, and she begins to step forward. Buck and Ravi are able to grab her just in time.
Eddie’s Trauma Journey
Eddie continues with his therapy sessions, though is unwilling to share a deep dive into every trauma he’s suffered. The therapist suggests they go back to his first trauma. The helicopter crash while Eddie was serving in the military, where he saved several of his fellow soldiers. They discuss fear, what Eddie is afraid of (but he won’t say it), and later Eddie overhears the call with the jumper, who doesn’t know how to function without fear.
Later that night, Eddie makes a call to his old comrade. Meanwhile, Chris is playing video games in his room when he hears loud crashing and yelling from Eddie’s room. He tries to investigate but hears Eddie screaming, and the door is locked. In a panic, Chris calls Buck, who races to their house immediately. He calms Chris as best he can, then breaks down Eddie’s door when he doesn’t answer. He finds the room utterly destroyed and Eddie sitting at the foot of his bed sobbing. “They’re all dead,” is all he can say. Gently, Buck tries to calm Eddie down. After putting Chris to bed (or at least calming him down somewhat), Eddie whispers to Buck he didn’t mean to scare Chris. They sit at the dinner table, and Eddie tells him that part of his therapy is to reconnect with some of the people he served with, so he called those that he saved from the helicopter attack. In doing so, he discovered they have all died. One in combat. One in a car accident. And one via suicide just last year. The realization sent him over the edge, and he broke down. Buck finally asks him what he’s afraid of. “That I’m never going to feel normal again.”
9-1-1 airs on Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT on FOX. Check out our other 9-1-1 coverage here.
