9-1-1 Recap: Mommy Issues

I have seen the light: 9-1-1 returned from its overly long midseason hiatus better than ever. These past three episodes have been firing on all cylinders — when the series is able to balance absurdity with real character development and a strong emotional core, there’s really nothing else like it on TV. (Maybe Doctor Odyssey? I haven’t watched.) “Holy Mother of God” delivers necessary closure to Bobby’s family drama introduced via flashback last season and provides some welcome clarity to Buck’s feelings for Eddie. I laughed, I cried, I gasped when a woman popped out of a flower bed. What a blessing this show can be.

We open with a massive revival meeting led by Ann Hutchinson, known to her followers as Sister Ann and played by the great Lesley Ann Warren. She’s a faith healer, but just after she has cured a woman named Greta of her bursitis and is about to lay hands on tax attorney Rodney and his gout, Rodney falls to the ground. People are passing out everywhere, and not only that — they’re also throwing up and doing really reckless stuff, like climbing the giant cross on top of the building. The 118 arrive and quickly diagnose carbon monoxide poisoning, triaging the situation to the best of their abilities. Unfortunately, Greta (now bursitis free!) is dangling high up on that cross, which is starting to buckle. Buck tries to lure her down, but she thinks he’s Satan. (“Ma’am, I’m not Satan, my name is Buck” is maybe the line of the episode for me.) Even after Greta comes to her senses, she’s too scared to grab his hand — it’s only Sister Ann with a megaphone who can coax her down. Once everyone is safely on the ground and away from the toxic gas, Bobby and Ann coolly acknowledge each other. Turns out she’s not only a faith healer — she’s also his long-absent mother!

Bobby’s mom has been a major question mark on 9-1-1. We didn’t see her until last season’s flashback episode, “Step Nine,” where she was played by Ellen Wroe. It was there that we learned Ann left Bobby’s abusive alcoholic father, Tim, and tried to take the kids with her. But while Bobby’s older brother, Charlie, went with their mom, Bobby chose to stay behind. In other words, there’s serious baggage here, as he tries to explain to Athena. (She had assumed Ann was dead — this really never came up over the last several years?) Bobby doesn’t talk to his mom because he gets a kink in his neck whenever he does. More important, he thinks she’s a fraud and a con artist. But Athena feels like it could be divine intervention that brought mother and son together again. “Do you think that God poisoned 400 people with carbon monoxide to facilitate a reunion?” Bobby asks, to which Athena replies, “He works in mysterious ways.” I’m not terribly convinced, and Bobby certainly isn’t either. At the same time, it’s hard to say “no” to Charlie when he shows up at the firehouse and says Ann wants to have lunch with Bobby and Athena. You get the sense that Charlie has lived a pretty miserable life as Ann’s son-slash-assistant — he’s had multiple marriages, which he credits to only having room for one woman in his life (creepy!). But Bobby obviously feels a fondness for his estranged brother, and that trumps the kink in his neck.

Bobby and Athena meet Ann and Charlie in her very luxe hotel suite — and would you believe it does not go well?! There are little jabs from the jump. When Athena reveals that they’re building a new house, Bobby explains that someone burned down their last one. “Not you, I trust,” Ann says, and it’s very rude, but I must confess she kind of ate that. They really get into it when the subject of Ann’s faith healing comes up. While I’m not a believer, I can acknowledge that her explanation of what she does is fairly reasonable: “I give hope for healing. I stoke the fires of faith because, well, I don’t know how people can get better without hope.” The problem is that she also mentions Bobby’s father, which is an obvious trigger. Ann says she protected Bobby from Tim, and Bobby points out she only did that until she walked out. “I will not apologize for leaving,” she says, and, sorry, but I really do take her side here, especially given how hard she tried to rescue both of her kids from a terrible situation. It’s at this point, however, that we learn it was Charlie and not Ann who arranged this lunch. Bobby decides to bail, though not before delivering a brutal final blow, telling Ann, “I do think you’re a fraud, but not as a preacher — as a mother.” Reader, I winced.

Let’s take a break from the Nash family to check in with Buck, who has been staying with Maddie and Chimney to avoid sleeping at his new place, a.k.a. Eddie’s former apartment. Maddie is doing great after having her throat slit; I think she got highlights? Buck, on the other hand, is struggling without Eddie. That’s a big part of the reason he can’t get settled in the apartment. Maddie suggests that Buck make some new friends, even though we all know there is nothing worse than trying to make friends as an adult. There are options, though, including Ravi, the probie firefighter introduced back in season four who, sadly, hasn’t had much to do since. Once again, Buck is shockingly awkward in his attempts to connect with someone, and it doesn’t seem like he and Ravi have that much in common. (Ravi is into frolf, or frisbee golf, which makes me think I don’t have much in common with him either.) Ultimately, they agree to get a drink, surely the start of a beautiful friendship.

Except that drinks are a predictable disaster, with Buck mostly boring the hell out of Ravi by talking about Eddie the whole time. (Buck won’t even share the more interesting story of Eddie’s involvement in an underground fight club, a season-three plotline I’d completely forgotten about. So much happens on this show!) It’s a relief for Ravi — if not for Buck — when he runs into Tommy at the bar and invites him over to their table. Ravi immediately bailing is kind of a dick move, but it gives the two exes a chance to catch up. “Things are good; some stuff has happened; my sister was abducted,” Buck shares. Tommy also learns that Eddie has moved back to El Paso; the two stopped talking when Tommy and Buck broke up. (Eddie’s commitment to bro code is honestly very endearing to me.) It’s clear these former boyfriends have missed each other quite a bit, so it’s not surprising when Buck invites Tommy back to his apartment — or when they enter already intensely making out. Even Tommy recognizing Eddie’s former place doesn’t kill the mood, and Buck is finally able to spend the night in his (newly christened) bedroom.

The next morning, Tommy is making breakfast, and it’s starting to look like this hookup may have been more than just ex-sex. They even talk about going out on a date. Tommy says he’s not as worried about Buck breaking his heart “now that the competition’s out of the way.” Oh, we’re going there — you better believe my ears perked up. Buck is taken aback by the insinuation, reminding Tommy that Eddie is straight. (I did laugh at Tommy’s scoff and his dismissive “okay.”) Buck then coldly tells Tommy, “I don’t have to want to sleep with everyone I have feelings for, and I don’t have to have feelings for everyone I sleep with.” So much for that rekindled romance! Later, Buck’s tone with Maddie is softer. He’s still baffled that anyone could think he’s in love with Eddie, but she has the same question. “It wouldn’t be so crazy,” she says, and, no, it really wouldn’t! I will, however, take Buck at his word that “as much as everyone seems to want me to be hopelessly pining for my straight best friend, it just isn’t like that.” If this is the end of the road for that particular ship, I’m glad we at least brought it out into the open.

And we can’t mourn for too long because there are emergencies to attend to. A medical-alert pendant brings the 118 to a man named Elmer having a cardiac event. Elmer has hypertension and a coronary stent, so while he swears he’s okay after collapsing among his flower beds, the paramedics take his condition seriously. Just as Hen diagnoses angina from exertion, a woman bursts out of a flower bed — it’s Elmer’s wife, Suzanne, and her story about eating funny-tasting sweet potato soup is enough for Hen to realize she’s been poisoned with cyanide. The LAPD is en route to detain Elmer when he has another cardiac event, and this one proves fatal. As she’s being wheeled off on a stretcher, Suzanne reflects that she should have left her husband long before the attempted murder. “He’s been trying to bury me alive for 42 years,” she says. That’s enough for Bobby to realize his mom may have had a good reason for leaving when she did.

He heads to her next revival meeting to apologize, but before he can do that, he witnesses Ann collapse onstage. At the hospital, Bobby learns his mother has terminal cancer. She’s not interested in treatment, saying only a miracle would save her at this point — she does acknowledge the irony here! — but she’s excited to meet her savior. My personal religious feelings (or the lack thereof) aside, the hospital room scene between Bobby and Ann is very moving, a credit to Peter Krause and Lesley Ann Warren. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get to save him,” Ann says of Bobby’s father. “Sometimes all you can do is save yourself,” Bobby answers, understanding his mother’s choice for the first time. They’re crying. I’m crying. It’s such a powerful moment that I can forgive the cliffhanger of Athena finding herself face-to-face with another cruise ship, cueing up the long-threatened Doctor Odyssey crossover. I cannot believe you monsters are forcing this woman onto open water again.

Call Log

• This episode marks Aisha Hinds’s directorial debut, and I think she did a stellar job. I don’t want any less Hen on the show, but I would love to see more of her work in the director’s chair.

• Buck-Tommy watch: Surprise, bitch! I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me. I … don’t think they’re going on that date, though.

• I do just want to take a quick moment here to address the pro- and anti-Buddie comments on these recaps. The subtext has long been there, and my acknowledgment of that — and now the show’s acknowledgment of that — is not an attack on either side or a justification for bad behavior online. I’ve been in various fandom trenches for decades now, and I know how heated shipper wars can get. But I’d appreciate an assumption of good faith here, instead of any sort of insidious agenda.

• Can we give Ravi something else to do this season? It can’t feel great to be a temporary replacement for Eddie, especially when Bobby keeps calling him Eddie by mistake.

• No promises on actually tuning into Doctor Odyssey, so maybe just give me a heads-up if anything important happens to Athena.