#also i don't know how it's taken me this many rewatches to realise abby's mom died of a pulmonary embolism

[ropsus]

I’ve been thinking about episode names again recently (thanks May Day and Hero Complex) and finally thought I’d write a little about the topic, more specifically of how the names of the first episodes of a season seem to fit stuff that happens in the final episode of that season as well. I don’t know if someone has already talked about this before but here goes:

Season 1 doesn’t work quite as well here, because the first episode is simply called Pilot, but if we look at the first episode of the season which has a “proper” name then we have 1x02 Let Go, which is what I’ll be looking into here.

Now, in 1x10 we have a couple instances where the Let Go title could also work. The episode opens at Abby’s mom’s funeral, and we get to see the aftermath of her passing. In a sense, this episode is Abby “letting go” of her mom and the life she has in L.A. (sidenote: Abby’s mom died of a pulmonary embolism?? I never caught that before. Interesting. But I digress). Abby also let go of Buck to some degree at the end of the episode as she left (this is a little debatable as she may have thought she would come back eventually but I would argue that at least some part of her let Buck go at the airport).

Then later on we have Athena having to “let go” of May and Harry as they’re going to be spending time (and the night) at Michael’s new place. Then the episode ends with Athena going out with Bobby for the first time which could be seen as her letting go of the family unit that she had with Michael and the kids in order to build a family again but one that looks a little different than what she envisioned when marrying Michael.

So, in this way we have the start of the season bookending with the end of the season (I love it when shows/books/whatever do this, it’s always so delicious), which also seems to happen in the other seasons as well. (Can y’all guess where I’m going with this already?)

Moving on to season 2 and 2x01 which is called Under Pressure. Then in 2x18 we have the package bombs that have a lot of people “under pressure” to figure out who’s sending them and there’s also the threat of where will a bomb go off next. This of course leads to Buck’s leg being crushed under the pressure of the ladder truck.

Then there’s the Diaz parents of it all aka Ramon and Helena putting Eddie under pressure to go back to El Paso now that Shannon has passed and he’s a single parent again. (Sidenote again: Ramon saying “you could choose another one [life]” to our repressed king Eddie? yeah this hurts).

Then in season 3 we have 3x01 Kids Today. This is probably the flimsiest of these but, eh, whatever. Of course, in 3x18 we have the whole “is Christopher old enough to go to camp” discussion which has Bobby commenting that he started to go to camp when he was 8 and could read a little like “well if I could why not the kid today” (like I said, a little flimsy). Then at the end we have May’s graduation party and later we find out that Maddie’s pregnant. This could be a sort of a “one kid grows up, another is about to be born” sort of circle of life thing that includes some kids today (and tomorrow). I don’t know, this doesn’t fit quite as well as the other seasons but it’s sort of there with the focus on kids in both 3x01 and 3x18.

And finally, we have my beloved season 4 with 4x01 being called The New Abnormal. Now, 4x14 doesn’t exactly have a new abnormal in it because we don’t reach it quite yet in the episode, but it certainly puts some things into motion that bring change, namely Eddie telling Buck about the will and everything else surrounding the shooting. (One could argue that Buck knowing about the will does create a new abnormal and I think so too, I just think we see the effects of that better later on than in the episode itself.) Of course, we do have the “new abnormal” for a brief period of time when Buck stays at the Diaz house with Chris when Eddie’s in the hospital, but it doesn’t last very long so I’m not sure it counts. But the wheels for a new (ab)normal are definitely put into motions especially in regards to Buck, Eddie and Chris. Apart from the Buckley-Diazes, we also start to see the severity of Maddie’s post-partum depression in the episode as she quits her job which then leads her, Chimney and Jee into a new (ab)normal.

I think it’s really interesting how we’ve gotten these types of bookends every season in a show that loves its parallels. And I think the show is likely to continue with this (unless they want to break the pattern but I honestly don’t think it will).

So, what does this mean for season 5? I’d put good money on there being panic in some shape or form for one/some character(s) as 5x01 is called Panic if they continue with the bookends they’ve had going on pretty much the whole time. But what the panic looks like remains to be seen. Maybe we’ll get Bobby panicking over May and/or Harry on the heels of the dispatch fire? Eddie dealing with more panic attacks? Buck having a little gay panic? Something totally different? I honestly have no clue. But I think there will be something. And I can’t wait to see whatever it is.