JE's Ramblings

Another week, another episode. I typed up my speculation for it yesterday. Today it's time for my review of the episode. So, be aware that the rest of the post will contain spoilers.

SPOILERS AHEAD

I'm not really sure what to think about this episode. I guess a good summary would be "It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."

I had been looking forward to Tommy's storyline with the pastor, but I'm not sure if I could really connect to it. I'll put a good chunk of it down to not being religious and as a result not really connecting to how much of an issue it could be to someone making a pass at their pastor (knowingly or unknowingly) or how other people in the congregation could react. I found the conversation between Tommy and Owen about this extremely awkward. However, the suggestion to have "backup" there wasn't a bad one. It might have been better to not spring it on the guy, but it still ended on a kind of positive note. I am curious to see how that continues.

As for Owen's storyline. I'm still not very sure about Owen being drawn into that entire thing. I am curious about the involvement of Sgt. O'Brien though. Is he crooked cop? Or is he investigating them for APD? Owen's ramblings about O'Brien were kind of amusing though. It kind of gave me a fic idea that I'm not sure I'm really going to write though. I'm not sure if it's canon or if I read it in a fic somewhere that O'Brien didn't like firefighters because a girlfriend left him for a firefighter. I tried looking through a transcript for "Red vs Blue", but didn't find anything explicitly. Either way, I wondered what if it wasn't a girlfriend but a boyfriend? Or the boyfriend was a firefighter and left him for someone else. I'm suddenly seeing O'Brien as a potential love interest for Owen. And wouldn't a sexual identity crisis be a nice thing to add to a midlife crisis? I mean, Owen could always be bisexual (or pansexual or whatever) and just never thought about it. Not sure if I'd want him to have always been aware of it, but it somehow never came up in the past three years. Not with how much of a womanizer he's been shown to be.

Finally, the part I've been focused on the most for this episode: TK, Carlos and Iris. A good chunk of that dinner scene had been shown in a preview posted on Instagram. I had kind of expected there to be more to it, but outside of Iris just taking the divorce papers to read later before leaving (taking a good chunk of the carb related food with her since the others weren't really eating it) that was it. It was a bit of a let down. I wouldn't say it went terribly though. Iris' interrogation was kinda funny and TK revealing just how much of a danger magnet he is. There's also one confirmed coma for TK back in New York. In on discussion thread (was it on a discord server?) someone mentioned that it might be related to his overdose as he nearly died at the time and TK might classify it together. I'm not convinced of that though. Instead, I find that it fits neatly into a narrative I'm constructing about how TK got addicted. Fanon seems to be filled with the idea that TK got addicted as a teenager and I was fine with that narrative until the episode "In the Unlikely Event of an Emergency" when it was revealed that Gwyn put TK into rehab in 2017. It left me with the impression, that this was the first time TK's confronted with rehab. The beginning of his rehab story. I had done some research previously that had shown me that FDNY requires a drug test during the application (unless I'm mixing stuff up) and I'm not sure if Owen or Gwyn would let TK go the path to become a firefighter/paramedic if either of them had known he was an addict. Especially since it's known that first responders run a higher risk of addiction due to their job. So, in my mind, it's far more likely that TK had gotten injured on the job (which might very well go hand in hand with a coma) and got addicted to opioids as a result of it.

Anyway, things continued as they normally do. TK bitched about it to Nancy. Which is kind of ironic as I started writing a fic about TK specifically going to Paul and not telling Nancy to avoid Carlos being judged for keeping his marriage a secret. She gave some good advice about talking to Iris directly. Which is what TK did, going to Iris' place of work. The conversation was kind of funny, if a bit confusing. Then again, TK was as confused as I was. And honestly? I didn't expect her to reject a divorce in favour of an annulment. It's a nice touch though. Probably not necessary in the eyes of TK, but I think it's a sentiment that Carlos would very much appreciate. And of course, TK had to ask about the sentence Iris dropped about TK being exactly what she had expected. I don't think she mean to hit TK with that much hurt, but she sure managed to hit the jackpot and set TK back quite a bit in his progress when it comes to his self-worth. Thankfully, TK has learned his lessons and does bring it up with Carlos (if maybe in a roundabout way initially) and I think Carlos does find a good way to put it into a different light. I've done minimal research into Schizophrenia so far and what it means for Iris (e.g. how reliable her view on certain events is and how likely it is that she's going to be manipulated/lied to by others), but I'm not sure how much her view on why Carlos and her got married can be trusted.

Naturally, as TK and Carlos talk about it, Carlos is called to work - because Iris disappeared and her purse with the divorce papers gets found. I really hope that neither Carlos nor TK is considered a strong suspect in her disappearance. I mean, it would be negligent if they didn't look at TK and Carlos, but I'd hate for it to turn into outright suspicion. Especially since TK had gone to her at the centre and Carlos is the husband seeking a divorce. However, while TK was at the centre, Iris did notice a woman missing and had talked about going out with a car to go looking for that woman. So, it should be far more likely that something happened while she was doing that than anything else. I really hope that the end result of all of this isn't Iris having a major setback when it comes to her own therapy or her dying. I'd love to see more about Carlos' family and friends outside of the 126.

Looking at all of that, I'd say that I was less apprehensive about the next episode than I was about this second one. I hope that doesn't mean that I just set myself up for absolutely hating the next episode. Sometimes it's better to go into something with less (positive) expectations than to expect something good.