RECAP: ‘9-1-1’ Season 9 Episode 17 — “I Got You Babe”

Once a show puts a shark on the highway, there’s really no being surprised at what the show will throw at you, and that was way before 9-1-1 ever sent firefighters to space. So, yeah, in the context of a show like 9-1-1, a donor baby storyline from Season 6 was always going to come back around sometime down the line to turn Buck (Oliver Stark) into a father ultimately. And that’s what 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17 does. But even if in hindsight it was inevitable, there’s one thing for certain — the timing couldn’t be worse.

9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17, titled “I Got You Babe,” sees the show return for its penultimate episode of this strange and horrible season. A kid wanders after a red balloon and ends up all the way up on top of an electrical tower. The 118 sends in their ace — Buck, who’s always been good with kids in a purely uncle capacity. The kid tells Buck his name is Theo, and Buck negotiates his exit from the electrical tower by offering to grab Theo’s balloon as well. Once they’re down, they discover Theo’s parents aren’t present and take him back to the firehouse, where Buck continues to bond with the kid.

This makes things a little awkward when Theo’s parents walk in and turn out to be Connor and Kameron, Buck’s friends from 9-1-1 Season 6, who asked him to be a sperm donor, making Theo Buck’s biological kid.

9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17 treats Buck like a child.

The episode itself is decent. It’s got a great structure and pace, and continues the migrant storyline from the previous episode, giving it more weight beyond performative. But 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17 also suffers from what the rest of the season has suffered from — treating Buck like he’s a child. It’s been a strange thing to witness.

Buck has always had a bit of a golden retriever energy about him, but he’s also incredibly mature nowadays (read: helping that guy living in his attic go to rehab, all of his interactions and mentoring of Harry (Elijah M. Cooper), etc). But it’s like the 118 can never see that part of him, and have drawn a portrait in Sharpie of him in their minds that he will always be that reckless 20-something who’s too eager for his own good.

I can see what they’re trying to do, especially with Chimney (Kenneth Choi). Chimney is Buck’s brother-in-law, so the remarks from him throughout Season 9 are supposed to carry that teasing brotherly banter to them. But with Chimney as captain now, it doesn’t quite work, and instead comes across as unnecessarily mean.

The characters have become a hive mind of what the show is trying to say in 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17.

There are a lot of those remarks about Buck in 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17 from the entire team. Even Harry gets in on it, asking why Connor and Kameron would choose Buck to be their sperm donor because “he’s Buck.” Considering how much Buck has mentored Harry this season, Harry’s comment is very out of character and indicative of a larger issue: the characters become a hive mind of what the show is trying to say, rather than embodying their individual characteristics. I don’t think Harry would think it’s weird that Buck’s friends asked for his help, yet he voices it anyway.

However, it could be argued that 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17 uses those comments as a setup for Kameron and Connor asking Buck if he ever had behavioral issues as a kid, but the show is too much of a coward to actually go that far.

It’s definitely implied, though. And it’s circling a potential ADHD diagnosis or something along those lines for Theo that makes those comments and the “heartfelt” scene between Chimney and Buck feel more sour.

The execution in 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17 leaves a lot to be desired.

Connor, Kameron, and Theo go to Buck’s house for dinner, and it’s there that they take Theo’s behavioral issues to Buck because, as Kameron puts it, “this didn’t come from my gene pool.” Later in 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17, Buck stews on the line of inquiry as he makes bread for the firehouse, prompting Chimney to sit down for a heartfelt conversation about how Buck has a good heart, yet also says he’s “sometimes dumb.”

Chimney’s his brother-in-law, so comments like these wouldn’t be out of place in a fair game of brotherly jest. But given the previous conversation tying Theo’s behavior to Buck’s childhood, calling him dumb is out of line and undermines what would otherwise be a great scene.

The comments about Buck from the rest of the team could have tied into drawing a connection between Theo’s potential behavioral diagnosis, but before the show can go any deeper about that, Connor and Kameron get into a horrible car accident that kills them both, leaving Theo in the hands of social services. The execution in 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17 leaves a lot to be desired, with nowhere for the Buck behavior comments to land.

The sperm donor storyline was controversial, but I liked it well enough at the time. During Season 6, Buck was seeking a purpose, and the storyline allowed him to reflect on his legacy and what he’ll leave behind. That was also the season he almost died by lightning strike, emphasizing those ideas even more. The whole thing culminated in Buck delivering his own kid on his couch, a beautiful full-circle moment for his life-and-death story beats that season.

Maddie struggles with no longer being friends with her colleagues in 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17.

Now, with Buck’s father figure dead and reconciling with his birth father, it makes some sense that his biological kid would come back into play. But 9-1-1 Season 9′s uneven pacing means Buck was just going through addiction two episodes ago. Giving him a kid now is an odd choice, especially when Buck’s desires seemed more focused on settling down with someone, if his “learning to be a half” speech from 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 7 was anything to go by. 

Elsewhere in 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17, Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) struggles with no longer being friends with her colleagues after becoming their supervisor. It’s not particularly interesting, acting more like a paint-by-numbers concept than anything else. Maddie feels left out and then tries to buy everyone’s love, only to accidentally give them food poisoning.

It’s just the nature of being promoted, and while it is an adjustment that should maybe be touched upon, it would be great to dive a little deeper into how Maddie feels no longer being on calls. That’s where she thrives, and the connection she makes with callers is one of the more dynamic aspects of the call center storylines. But having her in a supervisory position loses that drama, and now we’re getting typical workplace angst that doesn’t feel fitting to the purpose of dispatch.

Hen and Eddie’s storyline from the previous episode continues in 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17.

What came across as performative in the previous episode gets more depth in 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17 when Hen and Eddie continue their support for the migrant workers they found in a burning building. That episode ended with Detective Hooks making a suspicious phone call after agreeing to help the workers stay in the country, so it’s easy to point the finger at him when their hospital care is interrupted by ICE showing up to take them away.

But he manages to convince Athena that he’s on the workers’ side in 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17 and invites her to join him in his arrest of some top dog human trafficking guy. But in the end, he proves to be just as slimy as we knew him to be when he kills the guy instead of arresting him, and then shoots Athena, one of the better twists 9-1-1 has done lately.

Hen and Eddie’s support of the migrant workers is admirable, and I wish we had stayed in that story longer than just a big cop-conspiracy plot twist, just to keep it more grounded.

9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17, while good on an episodic level, struggles to justify a lot of its own setup about Buck’s purpose this season. Theo’s presence and Buck’s imminent fatherhood are certainly an interesting road to take, but it would be even better if the show drew tighter lines between its concepts and setups.

9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 17 is streaming now on Disney+ and Hulu, with new episodes every Thursday on ABC, and is available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu the next day.

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