9-1-1 Season 8, Episode 12 ‘Disconnected’ comes back down to Earth after a string of very good episodes and ends up being a rather tame hour in comparison—one that feels more like the setup for what is to come. Sure, Eddie and Christopher make up, and Maddie reclaims her voice after the trauma of being attacked, but very little actually happens in the hour that sees the show deal with dual storylines in Los Angeles and El Paso.
Or at least, very little that moves the plot forward in significant ways. Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Maddie gets some significant character exploration, and Eddie and Chris reconcile after being stagnant for way too long. But those two things, as welcome as they are, feel more like the characters returning to where we want them to be than the show pushing in truly new directions.
With six episodes to go, it’s now time for the show to explore new things for these characters—and hopefully, set up who they can be and what they will look like, going forward.
MORE: We interviewed Abigail Spencer after that scary episode of 9-1-1
SHE STOLE MY VOICE
It’s kinda refreshing to see 9-1-1 Season 8, Episode 12 ‘Disconnected,’ allow Maddie that moment of trauma after what happened with Braeburn because shows like these are often too quick to brush aside trauma. We’ll argue that 9-1-1 is actually pretty decent at dealing with it, even if scars do disappear fairly quickly, but the truth is emotional scars don’t just go away.
But it’s hard to blame Maddie for wanting to push through the trauma. There’s a part of us that feels like if we don’t just get back to doing what we were doing before trauma, like the ‘bad people’ won. And Maddie doesn’t want Braeburn to win. So, she has to get back to work. She can’t let this woman win. And though the show almost feels like it’s going to touch upon the moral implications of what Maddie used her voice to suggest this serial killer do, it doesn’t actually end up going there, either.
Instead, this storyline is about fear and about learning to live with it. Because Maddie says he’s not afraid, but deep down, I think there’s a difference between telling yourself you’re not afraid and understanding that there’s a fear that you just have to own and sort of accept will always be part of you now. But you will be stronger for what you lived through. Like Athena said, Maddie took down a serial killer. She might have a scar to show for it, but she survived. That’s not something many people can say.
MORE: Is Eddie Diaz gay? ‘Holy Mother of God’ at least makes it a fair question to ask.
WHAT IS CHRIS THINKING?
9-1-1 Season 8, Episode 12 ‘Disconnected’ brings us a much-awaited reconciliation between Eddie and Chris, and though it has been hard-fought, it is truly great to see them hugging at the end, and both Ryan Guzman and Gavin McHugh absolutely sell it, it feels a little hollow considering we don’t really know how we got there, or understand why Chris was so upset about in the first place.
So much of the Chris storyline has developed off-screen. We’d argue that too much of it has. At this point, we know more about Bobby’s mom, about Tommy, about Ravi, about Brad Torrance, about random strangers on a call that we know about Chris—even though McHugh is a series regular—that it adds to the resolution in this episode feeling rushed. We don’t understand how Chris gets here because we don’t understand how Chris has been feeling for the last however many months it’s been (we’re living in nebulous times here).
That’s what made this storyline so ineffective overall. Sure, it’s about Eddie being better than his parents, than so many of the 118 parents. But Eddie was already that! We didn’t need Chris jetting off to Texas to be with Eddie’s parents—or to have them be sort of sanitized, as they are in this hour, to prove that. In fact, we would appreciate it if Eddie would tell his mom that she is not Chris’s mother, please and thank you. Can we get into that?
The most frustrating part of this arc is that we should have seen more of it in 8A. It wouldn’t have even taken that much more. We didn’t need to get to this point expecting to learn everything about how Chris was feeling. We went from zero contact to ‘our relationship is a little better’ to ‘he knows I’m coming to Texas’ to Chris showing up to Eddie’s house on his own without any clue of how Eddie and Chris got there. Presumably, we’re going to get more next episode. Hopefully, we’ll get something from Eddie and his parents. But at this point, we can’t even be sure. We’re just as likely to get a comedy of errors that takes Eddie back to LA without ever dealing with his family issues.
MORE: We said it was time for Buddie canon now. Someone listened.
DISCONNECTED
9-1-1 Season 8, Episode 12 ‘Disconnected’ shows Eddie as disconnected as he’s ever been. From Christopher. His parents. From his family at the 118. In fact, the only person Eddie is connected with is Buck. But Buck isn’t just Eddie’s connection to his former life, Buck is Eddie’s connection to Eddie. To who he is. Because no one has ever seen Eddie better than Buck. No one has ever known Eddie better than Buck. And that’s a very conscious decision the show is making, particularly on an episode with this particular title.
Perhaps, a part of that is that Eddie has never let someone know him like Buck does. Because when he has a problem with Christopher, when he has doubts or fears, when he crashes out or when he messes up, he calls Buck. When he needs to show his house to potential renters, Buck is there. Not just that, when things are going well, he expects Buck to be by his side. When things are going bad, he needs Buck there. The episode doesn’t even examine that because this episode is about Chris and Eddie, but it’s the baseline.
Eddie is in Texas, and he isn’t even trying to change the status quo. He’s not trying to make new friends or reach out to old ones. He’s trying to find a job to support Chris and putting up with his parents, but he’s not even actually attempting to have a very close relationship with them. For Eddie, things haven’t changed. He cares about two things, Chris… and Buck. He’s disconnected from everything else, and he’s perfectly fine with that.
Funnily enough, this is pretty much the standard for Buck, too. We see his side of the conversation in this hour too, and it is like fanfic come to life. Pretty mundane stuff is going on as the two talk through the serious things going on in Eddie’s life. Buck puts Eddie’s needs before his—because he would love to ask Eddie to come back—and gives the advice Eddie needs to hear. You know, just as you do for someone you love. We’re past saying that it doesn’t mean anything; now we know it does. Now we’re just wondering when we are going to see Eddie address it since Buck already kinda did.
MORE: We called it. Eddie’s behavior in “Sob Stories” proved Buddie was coming.
Things I think I think:
- Maddie’s bump! And the song!
- Yeah, that Josh smile would creep me out, too!
- Maddie being open about her fears is actually a really good thing, honestly. Not gonna help with everything, but it is really good.
- Okay, FIVE WEEKS. WE HAVE A TIMELINE.
- Eddie’s Texas accent is coming in hot, lol.
- No, truly, code-switching is a thiiiiiiiing.
- That dang shirt. I promise that every Latino over 50 I know owns one. My dad had at least 3. My uncles. My grandfather. It’s a rite of Latino passage.
- What is it about it that type of shirt, and why does Eddie look so much more repressed in Texas? This isn’t even necessarily about his sexuality, either. It’s like he’s trying to fit in a box that isn’t his anymore, but he still feels like he’s gotta make himself fit in there. For example, when I go to my grandparents’ house for dinner, I don’t talk about most of what I like; I don’t’ ‘rock the boat’. It’s very hard to explain to people outside of the culture. It’s often not even consciously done. It just is.
- ‘Your Captain Nash loves you so much he said you’ll always have a job waiting for you at the 118.’
- BOBBY.
- Eddie’s face at that, too.
- Josh is a good friend.
- The escalating call as Maddie’s voice starts to go out was anxiety-inducing for me, I’m not gonna lie.
- Here’s how you know Helena Diaz just married into a Latine family and isn’t actually Latina: she doesn’t dote on Eddie. Latina moms have this thing about their male kids—and she just doesn’t.
- I know I’m supposed to like Eddie’s relationship with his dad at this point, I’m just still having issues here. Still feeling better about it than Eddie and his mom, but it’s like the show just redeemed them very quickly, and the whole episode feels very generic Latino, which to me. Like, the specifics of how Latino families work aren’t really captured because there aren’t Latine writers in the room to really get the little nuances.
- ‘You didn’t fail.’
- And then the ‘you went out there to be Christopher’s dad’
- Look, take it from the guy with shitty parents.
- Does this convo give ‘they talk while they’re doing absolutely everything or…’
- Write me the talking while they’re doing random stuff in the house fanfic.
- Everyone made the God joke at the next emergency victim.
- Athena’s ‘Tell me you have insurance’ was kinda funny.
- It was good to get so much Maddie and Chimney but it kinda sucks when we only get to so much content in these circumstances. Alas, the procedural life.
- Eddie, you are the most annoying Uber driver of all time. Shut Up.
- Oh, God, someone told you to shut up. Thank you, kind woman.
- LOOK, I SCREAMED WHEN CHRIS GOT INTO THE CAR, OKAY.
- How did he even wait to call Buck?
- Also, Buck is literally the partner in this scenario, but that’s neither here nor there.
- I love how Buck and Eddie’s relationship is still the same. Buck is calling him out on stuff, they’re not tiptoeing around each other. But Buck also isn’t letting Eddie spiral. ‘Your worst nightmare already came true.’
- Also, ‘Appreciate you, Buck’
- It’s a lot more than Eddie was saying when they were in front of each other.
- Didn’t know how much I needed Athena and Maddie until I got it.
- DID ATHENA REALLY SAY NOBODY IS.
- I LOVE YOU ATHENA.
- She’s right and she should say it.
- Also, ‘we took down a serial killer’
- That’s right, you did.
- When Maddie really and truly found her voice, I might have teared up a bit.
- That wallpaper is Eddie and mine’s worst nightmare.
- ‘Cause you need to save your money if you’re going to stick around.’
- ‘Yeah, you’re my dad.’
- Look, of course it’s that easy, but also HOW IS IT THAT EASY AFTER ALL THIS TIME?
Agree? Disagree? What did you think of 9-1-1 Season 8, Episode 12 ‘Disconnected’? Share with us in the comments below! Check out our Tales From the 118 podcast if you also want to listen to our reviews. On Apple Podcasts and Spotify! Plus, if you want to leave your own rating/comment about the show, you can do so in our 9-1-1 hub!
9-1-1 airs Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC.
I completely agree with this review from start to finish! Especially concerning the evolution of the Eddie/Chris relationship. I guess we’ll never see them truly talk about the Kim of it all, they just got better, yay. Yayy even.