By Michelle Gonzaba
Don’t you hate it when your mom’s rock band is so loud you can’t concentrate on your Zoom bible study class? Even worse, when you finally find your headphones, that same mom starts bleeding from her eyes due to synthetic weed laced with rat poison! Happens to the best of us. Luckily, the firefighters of 911 find it to be another typical shift in LA.
Once the crew has dealt with the marijuana and bleeding eyes, we get to see them enjoy their personal lives. And when I say enjoy, I mean really dislike. Buck’s finally getting himself back out on the dating scene, but his dinner date, Veronica, isn’t exactly his soulmate. He tries to get to know her but she shuts him down quickly and easily. Buck discusses his lame date with his temporary roommate, Albert, and knows he never wants to see her again. Unfortunately, he will be seeing her a lot since she has recently moved into his apartment complex. Poor Buck, he never gets a break. Also, poor Buck’s therapist — I hope she’s charging him double for all his drama.
Hen and Karen are trying to keep some level of sanity at their house when Hen’s mom, Toni, shows up at their doorstep. While Karen is making an attempt at being welcoming, Hen isn’t overly excited about her mother’s sudden arrival. Her appearance, though, is actually more of an extended stay. Toni excitedly informs her family that she is moving into their neighborhood. Hen doesn’t even try to hide her feelings, so you know this situation will go downhill fast.
On the other side of town, Athena visits Michael and gets a look at his new hobby, which is spying on the apartment building across the street with his new telescope. When Athena mentions the, um, weirdness of this hobby, Michael explains that boredom has caused him to start this new venture. His surgeon boyfriend is always working and his own work has dried up during the pandemic. We are all bored, Michael! Find a different hobby! Sourdough bread, plants, knitting — all of these are much more legal than spying on random people.
After Station 118 deals with humvees falling from the sky and attacking turkeys, Bobby stops by Michael’s apartment for dinner. While Athena may have sent him over there to stop Michael’s creepy hobby, Bobby becomes instantly enthralled with a certain apartment Michael can’t stop watching. Michael thinks the apartment and its resident are very suspicious; he has observed numerous women go in and out and the resident has a lot of trash. Michael’s boyfriend, David, also gets caught up in the mystery across the street. Now, you would think two professionals like Bobby and David wouldn’t get themselves involved with this kind of situation, but this is 911. So off they go across the street to do some dumpster diving and go through some creepy guy’s trash. Oh, Bobby, what would Athena say?
After ripping open numerous bags of trash, they find one bag filled with used medical supplies. How do they know it’s creepy guy’s trash and not someone else’s? They don’t! Nevertheless, they take the trash as confirmation of some shady activity. Before they can leave, however, Michael has rushed to the apartment across the street. Shockingly, his suspicions are correct. He finds a bleeding woman on a surgical table with medical supplies scattered around the room. He is able to call 911 before someone knocks him out.
Athena and her crime-solving gang of current husband, ex-husband, and ex-husband’s boyfriend connect the dots and solve the mystery of creepy-guy-with-medical-supplies. It turns out he lost his medical license a few years back and was running an underground plastic surgery clinic. After the criminal is caught, it seems like Michael is done with his detective days and decides to put the telescope down. It’s probably a better idea to throw it out all together. You just know Michael will start snooping again by the end of the week.
Hen is still coming to terms with her mom moving next door. After hearing her mother say she’s too old to go to medical school, their relationship reaches a breaking point. Before she can confront her, Karen tells her she saw Toni sleeping in her car at a nearby park. Hen finds her and discovers her mom has lost her job and house. After the two have a heartfelt conversation (in which Toni doesn’t apologize about the ‘too old’ comment), Hen invites her to stay with her and her family. With another person in her house, Hen is probably happy she is too busy to ever be home.
Buck tries to make amends with Veronica since they’ll be seeing each other around the complex. When he brings a piece of chocolate cheesecake to her apartment, he not only discovers they still don’t have romantic chemistry, but that Albert has started dating Veronica! I don’t know why he’s upset-it was clear he didn’t like her. However he feels about her, he’s clearly annoyed. Again, poor Buck’s therapist. She does not get paid enough for this.