You have to sacrifice one to save many
After 10 episodes, Shondaland thought it would be best for the Station 19 finale to go full on soap opera by leaving us with a handful of cliffhangers and a dozen questions. It feels like the good old days when our parents wondered who shot JR and they had to wait an entire summer before they found out. Season 2 is a long time from now. Who lives? Who died?
The day starts off uneasy. Captain Ripley’s presence at Station 19 puts everyone on edge. He’s performing his last interviews with chief candidates and the entire team is irritated that one of these jokers could be their new leader. Including enthusiastic “girl power” Dearborn from chief tryouts. Andy gives her dad some legitimate side eye, knowing that Chief Herrera didn’t recommend her or Jack for the job.
Suddenly dozens of pagers went off. There’s a huge fire in a skyscraper downtown. Every fire station in Seattle, except Station 19, has evidently been called to save the day. The natives become restless, just waiting for their siren to ring.
Jack tells Andy that if he doesn’t get chief, he will transfer because he “has regrets.” Low blow, Jack. Victoria is a bundle of nerves because she’s still scared of fire and doesn’t really want to go save the day, thankyouverymuch. Now that he can officially drive, Warren drums the steering wheel in the A-car, while encouraging Montgomery to tell Grant how he feels. (That feeling by the way is L-O-V-E.)
The siren finally rings and everyone springs into action. Captain Ripley has set up a command center four floors down from the inferno. Evidently this is completely normal. He needs some of the team from 19 to go relieve the firefighters upstairs and others to handle a bunch of civilians on another floor. Maya volunteers that she and Victoria will hand hold the white collar people and receive a huge thank you from her friend.
Guess who’s been fighting the fire all day? Dearborn. She is super stoked to show Captain Ripley what she can do in an emergency situation. As a result, she makes reckless decisions like jumping over a fire, only to find another fire on the other side of the original fire. Oh yeah, and a huge piece of debris falls on her and now she’s trapped.
Herrera being Herrera jumps over the fire, too, but she can’t pick the big piece of ceiling off of her frenemy. The fire is closing in on them. What will they do?
Why, throw an extinguisher sphere of course. You’ve seen those, right? They look like metal balls that explode upon impact, conveniently extinguishing the fire. Now, all we need is a billion more of those and we should be good to go.
Dearborn is too injured to continue, so she’s benched for the time being. Andy takes her back to command to be treated by Montgomery or Warren. They are head of triage and their main goal is to keep people from freaking out that a raging fire is right above their heads and the fire chief will not let them leave because it’s unsafe. Rock meets hard place.
It’s a good thing that young Molly is in charge of the civilians and has trained for this exact scenario. She takes her job as floor safety monitor very seriously and has the vest and orange whistle to prove it. Victoria and Maya are impressed by how she has handled a bunch of unnerved people and put her in charge of guarding the door so no one can leave.
It’s time to check in on Miller and Jack who remained on the fire floor when Andy took Dearborn down. Miller thinks that this is the perfect time to tell Jack that he is the reason why Jack almost cooked to death in the garage last week. He forgot the alarm code sequence, he was on the wrong radio channel, and he partied all night with JJ.
Before Jack can yell, or roll his eyes, or forgive Miller with a bulky bro hug, they stumble upon some flammable items on their floor. Lots and lots of flammable items. Who cares what it’s doing there. Jack immediately radios Ripley that the building must be evacuated immediately. It’s going to blow for sure if they can’t contain the fire to the floor it’s already on. (Recap continues on next page)
The radios aren’t working, so the team divides and conquers. Montgomery and Warren go to another floor to turn on a PPV panel to help clear smoke from the stairwells. Herrera runs up to tell Victoria and Maya that they have to evacuate the civilians. One guy flips out and Molly stands her ground and shouts right back. Then she helps everyone into groups of 10 and begins the evacuation. Sure, she freaks out a little bit because she’s a young girl who just wants to see her mother who is waiting for her outside, but Maya talks her down from that particular panic attack. Molly blows her whistle and escorts group one.
Victoria gives Maya a funny look and asks, “Do you hear that?” Maya doesn’t respond because she can’t hear from the explosion in the death garage. Suddenly fire whooshes in front of the windows and explodes shards of glass everywhere. The civilians do not remain civil and they all rush the stairwell in one big group. Victoria and Maya choose to fight the fire instead of herding the cats. It’s a true miracle that Victoria kicked her fear right after the huge explosion. Let’s do this!
Meanwhile, we find Warren and Montgomery on the ground. Their floor too exploded and one huge chunk of window sticks out of Montgomery’s chest. Right where his heart is located. I’m dying right now. Montgomery may be dying for real. Why would they kill off Montgomery?!
The worst part is that he knows what’s going on. He tells Warren that his pulmonary artery has been hit and he will more than likely bleed out before Warren can drag him to the stairwell. The same stairwell that has hundreds of crazy people flying down it.
Up above that floor, Jack and Miller find a victim with severe smoke inhalation. Since their stairs are blocked by fire, there’s definitely no way to get him down other than the elevator, which the chief refuses Jack to take. Andy challenges him, shocked that he would leave the guy up there when they could save him. I think she secretly wanted Jack to come down with the victim so she knows he is safe. She takes the handy fire key from the chief and sends the elevator up to Jack.
The best thing at this point would be for Warren to somehow hear the elevator, drag Montgomery to it, and let him hitch a ride with the others. Unfortunately what he heard was a faint whistle. Warren turns the corner of the stairwell, dragging Montgomery with him, and finds sweet Molly blowing her whistle. She’s been trampled.
What is going on? I can’t handle this.
Naturally Montgomery tells Warren that he has to save the life he can save, which is clearly Molly’s life, because Montgomery has a nice collection of blood seeping through his shirt. This is bad. All of this is very bad.
Miller and Jack make it to the elevator. Jack steps in while Miller tends to the guy. He pushes the button for the command center floor and then steps out again. Someone has to close the fire doors or the whole place will go. Miller screams for Jack to stop, but he doesn’t. At the same time, Chief Ripley snatches his key back from Andy and turns the elevators off.
Jack radios Andy to tell her they are on their way back. Newsflash: “They” does not include Jack.
Andy barks at Jack through her radio. She wants to talk face-to-face. This confused me until she pulled open her elevator door on her floor and he pulled his open on his floor. Smoke pours out and he looks down at Andy. She begs him to find a way off the floor, but he knows he’s trapped. The stairs are blocked. Plus, someone has to secure the doors to potentially save the building.
Jack is playing the hero and Andy slowly realizes that this might be the end. Jack tells her that their entire team is still in the building. And they haven’t heard from any of them. He won’t sacrifice losing any of them to save himself. He promises Andy that he will keep her on the radio as long as he can. Then he shuts the doors. But not before he confessed that he lied before. He has no regrets. Especially his relationship with her.
This can’t be happening.
And I haven’t even told you about Chief Herrera. He experiences shortness of breath and calls Ryan to come help him. Ryan is at the skyscraper, of course, and Chief Herrera makes him promise he won’t tell Andy. Ryan arrives at the fire station just as Miranda arrives. The chief missed his appointment and Miranda was worried. They find the chief on the stairs passed out. He’s not breathing and Miranda begins CPR.
Let’s take a quick roll call, shall we? Chief Herrera isn’t breathing. Victoria and Maya are the only two fighting the huge fire. Miller is stuck in an elevator with a guy who is about to die. Warren is in a stairwell with a trampled Molly, her whistle, and Montgomery who is slowly bleeding out. Andy is going into shock because Jack is no longer communicating on the radio.
And scenes.
Who died? Who lives? My bet is on Dearborn, the victim in the elevator, possibly Chief Herrera, and maybe Molly. Surely they won’t kill off Jack and Montgomery. They will find a way to stay alive. Jack will careen down the elevator shaft and Montgomery will somehow patch his own heart with the orange whistle, right? Tell me I’m right.
