911 season 8, episode 13 promised us an intense episode of Hen putting her life on the line to save another life. The lead up to that explains just why she did it.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for 911 season 8, episode 13.
We continue the storyline in two states. In Los Angeles, Hen realizes that nobody remembers that it’s her birthday, while in Texas, Eddie feels more and more pushed out in Christopher’s life. There are some big topics in this episode about not forgetting the important people in your life.
Everyone forgets Hen’s birthday in 911 season 8, episode 13
The episode starts with Hen finding the perfect outfit to be able to celebrate her birthday. However, she doesn’t get the morning celebrations that she thought. Karen is busy rushing everyone out of the house, with Mara bringing up that it’s photo day at school — and that’s what is so important.
Athena calls to wish her a happy birthday, but that’s it. Everyone else forgets. It’s surprising that Athena didn’t mention to Bobby that she would need to call Hen that day, but it certainly shows who Bobby and Athena don’t live in each other’s pockets. Athena does try to give Karen a pass, and I had hoped that the show was going for the trope of Karen planning a surprise, but that wasn’t the case at all.
When Hen gets to the firehouse, she finds out that everyone else has forgotten. Even her mom didn’t remember. As soon as Chimney, Buck, and Karen realize their mistake, they try to make it up to her. Only Hen’s mom points out about how ridiculous Hen is being over this. It’s not ridiculous for wanting your birthday to be celebrated. The day my ex-husband forgot my birthday and just acted like it was nothing hurt, and it really was the point I knew there was no coming back from that. I think having a parent forget and then not even make a deal about forgetting would be even worse.
Hen puts her life on the line
With how everyone forgot about her, it’s not surprising that she connects so much with Archie. However, she does have some harsh words for him. Archie keeps popping up, with it looking like life is just against him. He’s invisible to everyone, although it’s clear that he’s allowing life to pass him by.
He takes Hen’s words a little too much to heart. After his car, which he’s sleeping in, is towed, Archie decides it’s time to stand out. What better way than to get on the city bus and hold it hostage with a knife in hand?
The moment makes it clear how a mental health crisis can develop. It’s a series of little things that buildup to the point of someone cracking. Sometimes, there’s just that one straw that breaks the camel’s back, and people become dangerous. While police need to be more equipped to deal with these crises, the world needs to do better to prevent a crisis like this from even happening.
What’s bad is that Archie didn’t mean to stab a victim on the bus. The police put out the trap to blow the wheels, which led to the bus breaking hard and the stabbing victim falling into Archie’s knife. Of course, that’s not something that will be shared, and had Archie not had the knife, then he wouldn’t have accidentally stabbed someone.
Archie does eventually allow the stabbing victim off the bus, and now it’s time for Hen to talk him off this ledge he’s on. She does it with a bit of reverse psychology, as she makes Archie think that she was just acting like all the others — giving him advice that was really meant for herself. It works, as Archie points out that Hen has helped him each time, including getting on this bus. While this gets him to put the knife down, it doesn’t get him off the bus right away. She has to pull the birthday card to get him to take that risk — the risk of being shot by the police.
It looks like he’s going to be shot as he puts his hand in his pocket saying “speaking of your birthday.” He just wanted to give her a birthday present, but the police thought he was going to pull out a weapon. Hen realized he wasn’t a risk, though, and she pushed him out of the way in the nick of time. It all ended well, but it was a tough one and Archie was an idiot at the end.
Athena arresting him was just the best. She’s just so used to the idiots of Los Angeles now, and you can tell that she’s done with these types of arrests, but she’ll keep pushing through. Now if people would stop being dumb!
Eddie feels pushed out of Christopher’s life in 911 season 8, episode 13
Eddie is excited at the start of the episode. He has tickets to a game that weekend, and he’s excited to take Christopher with him. Before he can even share this exciting news, Eddie’s parents make it clear that Christopher has plans for that weekend. He has a big chess tournament that Eddie definitely did not know about.
Just as Eddie is about to give up on being in Christopher’s life again, Buck makes it clear that Eddie needs to fight a little harder. He needs to go to the chess tournament to support his son, and it’s a good thing that he’s there. Christopher throws up in the middle of a match, and Eddie is able to rush him to the bathroom to help.
There’s a beautiful moment in this scene. As Eddie makes it clear that Christopher doesn’t have to play chess if he doesn’t want to, he then shares that he was going to ask Christopher to move back in with him. Well, he decides that he’s telling Chris to move back in, and that’s when Chris says “you’re gonna be my dad again?”
Oh, Christopher! Eddie was always his dad, but not a good one. Now he gets to be a more present dad, and it’s clear that this is all Christopher has wanted. By Christopher going to live with his grandparents, he had this view that his dad had stopped wanting him. After all, Eddie didn’t put up much of a fight and he remained in Los Angeles while Christopher lived in El Paso. It’s easy to understand why Christopher believed that Eddie didn’t want to be his dad again.
This is a turning point for this relationship, and I’m so glad to see it. I’m glad it hasn’t taken more than a couple of episodes to get to this point, and I can’t help wonder if it means Christopher is going to share that actually his life in Texas isn’t that great and he would like to go back to Los Angeles.
For now, Eddie needs to get Christopher back in his place. His parents don’t like it, but they don’t get to say much against it. One thing Eddie has been able to see now that he’s back is that Eddie’s parents are doing the same thing to Christopher that they did to him. They keep pushing Christopher to do chess because he’s “good at it” to get trophies, in the same way that they pushed Eddie to do ballroom dancing for the same reason.
In the end, the episode ends with a happy ending. Buck’s guilt gives Hen and Karen free yard work, while Bobby cooks a delicious dinner. And with the great article about how Hen isn’t just a good firefighter but also a good human, she decides that it’s her best birthday ever.
911 airs on Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC. Catch up the following day on Hulu.
Stay up to date with the latest TV news with Hidden Remote.