“STATION 19” RECAP: “INDOOR FIREWORKS”
It was almost hard to keep up.
So many things happened in “Indoor Fireworks”, the second episode of season three of “Station 19.” It was almost hard to keep up. But as usual, Ben Warren (Jason Winston George) the rookie firefighter and former surgeon of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital took the cake in peak annoyance. Warren was followed closely by Robert Sullivan (Boris Kodjoe). Honorary mentions are Maya Bishop (Danielle Savre) and Jack Gibson (Grey Damon).
I’ve followed “Station 19” closely since it was first released on March 22, 2018 by the television network ABC and initially I didn’t see how sustainable the show would be since it was supposed to focus on Andy Herrera (Jaina Lee Ortiz) and how she becomes captain of her station but, I was wrong. Now I have to say it’s probably one of the most underrated shows out there. I mean, the writers of the show managed to turn a simple story about a team of fire fighters competing for a promotion into an engaging series filled with sexy scenes, drama, humor, and great eye candy. “Indoor Fireworks” meets all of these benchmarks.
In this episode we are introduced to fire fighter Rigo Vasquez (Rigo Sanchez) and the new fire chief Albert Dixon (Pat Healy) which no one seems to like. Also apparently Dixon looks like a perv. Dean Miller ( Okieriete Onaodowan) even says he looks like a sex offender within his ear shot which is a classic clumsy Miller move. (I thought Dixon looked more like a serial killer by the way but to each his own.) I love the exchange between him and Victoria Hughes (Barrett Doss) when they both realized that it’s best to stay under the radar instead of potentially offending their new boss.
Then except for Herrera , everyone is called to a department store fire owing to a dare gone wrong between two teenage boys. The boys lite up the store with fire works but somehow the patrons of the story decided that they had time to steal instead of running to safety. Travis Montgomery ( Jay Hayden) was the star of that moment in my opinion. Even though the customers were annoying and one of the people he was rescuing was making things worse because of their shock, he stayed cool enough to give a cheesy monologue and still save the day. Warren though, was reckless and completely infuriating because he didn’t care that acting rashly like he did causes more problems if his team has to save him too (as we’ve seen in previous episodes). I call for a suspension until he remembers how to act in a team.
On the other hand, Sullivan is really threading the line of abuse of power. He gaslight Herrera by pretending that she was irrational for believing that they had a connection and then punished her for his feelings. How does that make sense? Instead of taking sick leave himself, he benched her and potentially ruined her reputation in the process as an act of self-preservation and yet, Herrera still wants to be with him. Isn’t it important to have a partner who is considerate of you? He is already showing her how he would likely treat her in a relationship. But Herrera doesn’t seem to care even though she has other options. (It’s probably because she has a savior complex which forces her to go for the wrong guys.) Also, it needs to be mentioned that Ryan Tanner (Alberto Frezza) really needs to learn to take no for an answer and stop confessing his feelings every second.
Besides that, even though we had a lot of opportunities to enjoy the beauty that are Sullivan and Gibson, it wasn’t enough to squash the feeling of irritation Bishop and Gibson inspire with their annoying love troubles. Do you or do you not love each other? Also, why is Gibson allowed to be casually sexist with no push back? There is nothing wrong with having your sights set on your career and for pushing relationships on the back burner if you feel happy as you are. Gibson’s pain is valid but maybe trying to shame a prospective partner into being with you isn’t the best approach. Especially considering how self-righteous he is, given that he’s sleeping with Vasquez’s wife. Did he really forget that he’d met her before? Was that really an accident? You decide.
Still, admittedly, Bishop is very careless with other people’s feelings. It’s obvious that she is probably in love with Gibson given that she risked her friendship to be with him and was well-aware of the possibility of how the relationship would interfere with her career before pushing forward with it. So, I suspect that she’s scared about how much she actually loves him. Classic commitment issues.
“Station 19” isn’t one of those dramatic shows with edifying angles and it generally shies away from politics but it is really invigorating and worth a watch. Some exchanges are predictable but viewers will still get a shock here and there. Based off everything we’ve seen so far, here are my predictions for the next episode. As usual, Herrera will fall back onto Tanner’s lips by accident, of course. Gibson will continue to mess around with Vasquez’s wife even though he knows it’s wrong. Bishop will be upset after she learns about this scandal. Herrera will go back to work some how and flare up feelings for Sullivan and she’ll also fix things with her dad. As for the rest of the characters, they’re pretty unpredictable so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.