#thetalee has opinions

[thetalee]

wait no hold the fuck up

Hen is the only woman we see using the same locker room as Buck and Co. But there’s other women on their shift.

Like I said, there’s a women’s locker room at the station, we just don’t see it before/after Hen Begins. We also don’t see the other women on shift using the same locker room as Hen.

I don’t want to throw accusations at anyone, but I am Viscerally reminded of the way that in Marching Band, they made the lone Openly Gay guy (not me, this is small town high school and there was a kid who got bullied So Hard for being gay our freshman year that he transferred to a different school before Halloween) change with the girls.

And like I said, I don’t want to throw accusations, but the fact that they have the lesbian using the men’s locker room...

(I cannot remember if we ever see Lena or Lucy using the same locker room as everyone else, and now I need to go back and look...)

[matan4il]

Reblog to reply to comments:

@geekgirl101 said:

I was so mad

I have since watched the whole ep, and I wasn’t mad when I wrote the original ask reply, just mostly disappointed, but I am now.

@scarletsaga said:

literally none of what you just said is true besides i think it was all to set up paul a trans man officiating the gay wedding which if this is the case i think is just as important would a rabbi be nice yes but paul is much more fitting also the rabbi was not made fun off in any way 

So I’d like to start by saying that whatever your opinion? It is legitimate, and deserves a free and mutually exchange of ideas. But as the last part implies, my opinion is legitimate and deserves the same. Commenting on my post saying “none of what you just said is true” (making it seem like your POV is the objective truth and mine isn’t) is not as respectful as I’d like to encourage people to be. More than that, in my post I reacted just to the clip that the wonderful @thetalee​ shared with me, but I have since seen the whole ep, including the full montage of officiants (this clip didn’t include all of it). Clearly, the bit did set up the rejection of all of these officiants, so I am presumably correct on at least this point, right? Especially since you echoed it yourself in saying you believe Paul would be the officiant instead. There was no need to invalidate my whole post to make your point that you would be happy to see Paul as the officiant.

Now that I’ve seen the ep, I can tell you that I agree Paul as the officiant is a very likely outcome. And I also agree with you that it would be important queer rep! I’m a gay Jewish disabled woman, I know how important rep is from every single one of these angles of my identity. But you know what? I can applaud one subject they do well with, queer rep, while pointing out where they’re getting it wrong with Jewish rep. Both are important. And I just can’t agree that I should be silent on the Jewish perspective in favor of the queer one. We should care about all minorities, and just like I’m sure you can understand that good women’s rep doesn’t help gay people, and good queer rep is needed on top of it, the same is true for Jewish rep. More than that, there are unique intersections of queer and Jewish identities that matter for gay Jews, and 911 Lone Star could have done so well with that, but it just blew the opportunity. And I, as a gay Jew, should get to say that.

Every single one of the officiants was set up to be rejected. The tone of the whole scene was comic, and we as the audience were invited to roll our eyes along with Carlos at them. Carlos even mocks two of them explicitly (the reverend to his face by calling him Tom without the title he insisted on, the “second sight” lady to TK). If we had better Jewish rep overall on TV, or even just on 911 Lone Star, then how this one Jewish rabbi is presented wouldn’t matter as much. On the show Hunters, for example, there is a comical presentation of a rabbi who fumbles telling a traditional Jewish story. However, on that show, there is so much respect and love for Jewish identity and tradition, that there’s room for that comical bit. On 911 LS, even with a main Jewish character, there is so little actually good Jewish rep (practically none for the first 2 seasons, upgraded to so so in s3, back to problematic in s4), that the few scenes which touch upon Jewish identity each carry way more weight. If you’d like to read more about the Jewish rep on LS and why I don’t think the show has done a good enough job so far, you’re welcome to have a look at this post. If you’d like to learn more about how little good Jewish rep there is on TV in general, you’re welcome to have a look at this one.

I’m sure you had nothing but good intentions, you probably love Tarlos and Paul and wanted to defend the possibility of him officiating their wedding. I hope you can understand where my reply is coming from (and why the comment section wasn’t enough for it). I know this is long, so I understand if you don’t reply to it, but I still had to say that as someone who was really excited to see the Jewish side of TK having more room in this season (after the Gwyn storyline in s3) and especially with his upcoming nuptials, I am disappointed. And there’s room for both of our POVs in fandom.

twitter. com/ RonenRubinstein/status/1645845230065942528 clip from tonight's Lone Star episode.

Hi darling! Thank you so much for sending me this clip! I really appreciate your kindness and that you thought of me! *HUGS*

TBH, I'm... a bit unsurprised, but still disappointed. This very much looks like a montage meant to explain to the viewers why none of these officiants is a viable one. So it's already kind of disheartening to see the option of the rabbi presented in this context. But it's also upsetting to see that a rabbi who is fully accepting of Tarlos as a gay couple is sort of implied to be just as unacceptable as a priest who is telling them they're going to hell. I also feel like there MUST be more accepting priests in Austin, so the choice to present one like this should probably also be upsetting. Not to mention that I'm not sure why a man with that POV would even agree to meet with Tarlos to discuss being their officiant. Like, nothing about this little bit works for me (the one part that does is the lady who wants them to have the difficult conversations before marriage, because actually? Yes. THAT is sound advice). But yeah, as a Jew in a permanent state of deprivation when it comes to actually good Jewish rep, my gut tells me this ep doesn't look like what I was hoping for.

Again, thank you for sharing with me! Even if I'm unhappy, at least I'm prepared and know what to expect once I do watch the ep. And just know that I am ALWAYS happy to hear from you! Have a great day, my love! As always, my ask tag. xoxox

[thetalee]

Rewatching the (so awful, god help me) finale for this chapter, and there’s so many questions just starting out like

Were these benches always there? I don’t remember them being there. They’re big and bright red and in the middle of the bay, I feel like I would remember seeing them there before.

and

Why the FUCK is Eddie Diaz being assigned to do maintenance on the fire engine???? Doesn’t this show have consultant? Is there no one on set or in the writing room that has at least the capacity to google? Or at least has the LAFD website with their positions&ranks with relevant duties as an open tab? The Driver/Engineer does the basic maintenance (like oil changes) on a fire engine. It confused me when they had him doing it back in season two, for the same reason I am sitll confused as to Why the Fuck Buck was driving the engine in season one.

and also

Did the finale writer(s) pull the WIlson foster kids out of their ass and stick it in without telling any of the other writers? Because that’s a development they could have at least mentioned in the previous episodes after they made a big to-do about them no longer fostering in 6a.

[thetalee]

ACTUALLY YOU KNOW WHAT

Those benches have triggered a rant about the design of this station

The very questionable design

Okay so it isn’t a full rant beyond

Why are the locker room walls see through?

and

What happened to the women’s locker room? It was used for storage in Hen Begins, but after that...???

and

Why does the Captain’s office only have one desk and why does it only have a nameplate for Bobby? Does the set designer assume Bobby is the Only Captain? Do(es) the other shift lead(s) have their own office(s)? But then where are they? And actually, this starts me down the rabbit hole of both OG and LS assuming that there’s only One (fire) captain per station, because they mentioned how things were bad Before Bobby arrived and fixed things, but they never mentioned if he fixed things on the other shifts or if the captains there are Still just as bad? And also in Lone Star, they act as if that explosion took out Every firefighter at the station but realistically, it only took out One shift, so-

and

WHY the FUCK is there only ONE BAY DOOR!?!?!?!?!?!?

This is a Moderately Large sized station with two ambulances, a engine, and a ladder

WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE OTHER BAY DOORS???

We’ve seen them coming in and out, they have to wait their turn to go out the ONE BAY DOOR. The first truck in has to angle itself so that it goes in at an angle so that the others have room and-

WHY

I want this station to be utterly Demolished in season 7 just so someone can Fix That.

[thetalee]

I think midway through season 3, the writers changed their minds from "Eddie's the youngest" to "Eddie's the oldest." Because we have that mysterious niece from 2x01, and we have him mentioning watching his sisters stress over the college essays and joking how that was part of the reason he joined the army. But then in his begins episode in season 3b, Helena talks about Ramon missing all the births, and Helena is listing them out, specifically saying "he was in Galveston when you were born, and then Sophia... and then Adriana...," an order they keep to for 5x17.

(under a cut because I got ranty)

Also, the fact that they retcon him into being younger really, really takes away from the drama between Eddie and Shannon. Because the birthdate they have for Shannon on her tombstone, and the onscreen birth year for Christopher in Eddie Begins, means that Christopher was a teenage pregnancy. Like, assuming it's a case of the writers fucking up at basic math, a common problem - because everything in that Eddie Begins scene points at Shannon being out of high school - it still puts them as at best eighteen or nineteen.

"I ran away first"? Eddie, honey, you were a teenager facing fatherhood. The exact sort of person the military preys on. Especially when Chris got diagnosed and there were literally no viable alternatives to someone without a college degree. Talk to Shannon about it, don't talk to Shannon about, all paths led to re-enlisting, because dropping out of the army meant losing the insurance that they were going to desperately need for surgeries and doctor's appointments and physical therapy and more and more and more.

Retconning their ages really did a disservice to Shannon, because it just puts her in even worse light for the way she left. Because suddenly she's not dealing with "an adult who made a unilateral decision on something without talking with his wife about it," and instead it's "a kid who made a unilateral decision because there was no other choice to be made."

Shannon was already in the wrong for the way she left that first time. The retcons to their ages just means that her, and the show's, attempts to equate it to Eddie's joining the army is increasingly shitty.

(And before anyone says anything: Shannon had several other options instead of the one she went with. She willingly, and knowingly, went with the one that meant abandoning Christopher.)

[thetalee]

Unpopular opinion, but Bobby is... A really shit captain??? Like, hear me out, let’s start with 3a. Bobby keeps Buck from coming back because Bobby isn’t ready, and pushes Buck away, and then just... Lets everyone act like what follows is Buck’s fault.

(Not to mention the way he slammed Buck into a wall way back in season 1, wtf. Literally nothing excuses treating a subordinate that way.)

Then there’s the way that, except for That One Time with Buck in season 1 and then in 3a with Fight Club!Eddie, Bobby just... doesn’t seem to actually care for his people’s emotional well being? He seems to run hot and cold with it, actually. Lost a dude? Therapy! Get shot by a sniper? Eh it’s fine. Develop anger issues due to wife asking for a divorce and then dying? Therapy! Get stabbed by your girlfriend’s psycho ex-husband and left for dead while she gets kidnapped? Walk it off.

Which brings me to Eddie’s turn at Buck’s 3a plot line. Like yeah, okay, Eddie is clearly Not Doing Well. You know what doesn’t help with that? Repeating your mistakes and keeping him away. Like, Bobby Should Have insisted on therapy when Eddie was asking to leave the 118, at the latest, because everyone and their dead cat could tell that Chris was just an excuse. A captain worth their paycheck would have DEFINITELY noticed.

And now, because he pretty much rebuffed him, Bobby has literally no leverage for insisting that Eddie gets help. Like, if he had allowed him back in his spot, he could have gone “okay sure but only if you go to therapy” but instead it’s...”I’m worried and because I’m worried I’m going to do jack and shit to make sure you’re actually okay and do everything within my power to make you feel isolated and alone. Because I’m a good captain. :’D”

As an aside: am I right in assuming, based on how Bobby apparently resorts to asking May about Eddie, that Bobby himself hadn’t reached out at all? Because that’s the impression I got.