Fire Country went to the county fair this week and as per usual with this young show, things did not go to plan. We saw a fair ride malfuction and cause complete chaos, Eve beginning to work towards a new goal by shadowing Manny (Which led him to jump to conclusions) and Gabi trying to shake jitters from the worst call of her young career. Let's Discuss!
This Week's Disaster:
First of all this episode brought back my phobia of fair rides. I have always said that anything that can be put together and torn down within a few hours is not something that should be considered safe, and this episode showed why. With the fair in town, you just knew that we weren't going to see our characters frolicking around and being care free for fourty five minutes. So when the camera focused on the ride that was obviously about to spin out of control, I knew that this would be our disaster. The ride malfuctioning and spewing pieces of metal everywhere set off a chain of events that at times bordered on the absurd. For example, was it really necessary for the poor teenage ride operator to be crushed after Jake pressured him to get to the shut-off switch? No. Also, the child of Aaron, Bode's old baseball nemesis running and hiding after being flung from the ride seemed like a bit too much. That being said, the action was engaging and the teams worked diligently to save people, so I will cut them some slack becuase at the end of the day we are watching this show for entertainment, not realism. This disaster also worked as a catalyst for the personal drama we have come to know when it comes to this show.
The Character Conflicts:
Even though this episode had innocent fair-going victims being attacked by a ride designed for fun doesn't mean we cannot have character drama! At the top of the show's hour we saw Gabi wrestling with some latent PTSD because of the Meg situation that happened a few episodes back. At first, I wanted to chastise the show for just now getting to this, but then it is also real that someone can be triggered by a traumatic event and regress in certain aspects of their life. Gabi being unable to perform EMT skills she was being trained for was uncomfortable to watch because she was abandoning patients after Sharon gave her an order. Running from the problem is not a solution and it was good that Sharon called her onto the carpet for doing that. Her hesitation could have cost the lady who went into cardiac arrest her life. Hopefully Gabi can move past this and get back on track to pass her EMT course so she can move out of probie status. She wasn't the only Perez acting out of pocket, her dad Manny did not have the best look in this episode.
The idea of Eve shadowing Manny with 3 rock is a great writing idea. We saw that being with Sharon in incident command just ain't it for her, so her trying to learn from Manny got me excited. What wasn't good about this was Manny's paranoia that Eve was a narc for Sacremento about 3 rock to take his job. First of all, why would Eve willfully tell Manny she was in contact with Sacremento if she had some nefarious plan to unsurp him as 3 Rock's leader? Her intentions were nothing but above board and Manny acted like a complete jerk for no reason. Yes, he has been down and out since he relapsed with his gambling, but that is not an excuse to let your mind take you places that aren't even accurate and act on those delusions. It is good that he talked to Eve and realized this, but Manny hasn't had the best string of episodes lately, which is disappointing becuase he was one of my favorite characters when the show started.
Odds and Ends:
* The fatal attraction vibes with Rebecca being so upset Bode rejected her were strong. Their casual hook up seemed to be just that, casual. So why was she throwing around 'break up' and drinking sorrow beer becuase Bode was no longer interested? Maybe it was a crossing of signals, but her behavior was weird. It is good that she came around and they agreed to be friends, and hopefully she sticks to that.
* Jake and Cara? I think I like it. I admittedly am not Jake's biggest fan but he has been on an upswing ever since making up with Bode. Cara seems like a much better fit over Gabi.
* Sharon is on track to get Jake's kidney which is good because I hated seeing our show's mom and dad discussing what would happen if she died.
That is it for now! The show is taking yet another brief pause for a few weeks, so we will have to wait and see how the continuing plot threads progress. What did you think of this one? And are you uneasy that the show hasn't addressed the fire bug we saw two episodes ago? Let me know in the comments!
