"Don't make me sad, don't make me cry. Sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough, I don't know why."

Han, Cil, and Rachel close out Season 9 with episode 18, "Hearts and Flowers" — the finale where the 118 splits off into pairs, Eddie Diaz gets stabbed for talking shit in a hospital chapel (God answered, it wasn't great), and Buck becomes a foster dad after a birthday party where an 18-year-old Harry says something that hits different when you're the only adult in the room without a kid.

We talk about why this season ranks among our favorites — the connective tissue, the found family reestablishment, the writing consistency across 18 episodes that held like it knew exactly where it was going the whole time — and what we wish had landed differently, including one very specific coma dream that should have featured a different white man. They know. We break down the ensemble character moments, celebrate Chimney surviving his first team NDE as captain, and give Ryan Guzman every flower we have for what he brought to that elevator sequence. It has gone quintuple platinum in our heads and we have seen it more times than we've seen our own families.

Then we trace Eddie's religious arc coming full circle — chapel, blade, closet-coded elevator, Pietà — follow the Hays Code queer coding pipeline, and confirm academically that getting stabbed is extremely gay of them. Unrepression checklist items: checked. We revisit the nine o'clock symbolism, map the season parallels, and get into what Tim, Oliver, and Ryan keep saying about season 10 and what it means for the Buckley-Diaz family, version 2.0.

The 118 means family. Family means nobody gets left behind. Not even the guy bleeding out in the elevator.

"The road is long, we carry on, try to have fun in the meantime."

Episode title inspired by “Born to Die” by Lana Del Rey

📔 Articles & References From This Episode 📔

🫂What If Someone Was in the Elevator with Eddie? – Check out this week’s Patreon-exclusive Best Buddies Mini-Segment here!

📰 9x18 Behind the Scenes for "Educational Purposes”, 911onABC on Twitter and Instagram

📰 ‘9-1-1’ Boss Tim Minear Teases Season 10, Talks Buck And Theo, Detective Athena, And More, by Nicole Gallucci with Decider

📰 Interview: Oliver Stark Discusses Season Nine of '9-1-1' and Buck's Life-Changing Storyline, by Sophia Soto with Awards Radar

📰 Eddie’s Through Line Being a Light in the Darkness, _118problems on Twitter

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Music by DIV!NITY

Chapters

(00:00:00) Previously on 9-1-1…

(00:01:00) Welcome to Dispatch 🚨

(00:01:48) 9x18 “Hearts and Flowers” Review

(00:05:55) Three Cheers for Eddie in That Elevator 👏🏼

(00:15:23) What Could Have Worked Differently?

(00:26:52) How Can We Give Eddie Satisfying Season Arcs?

(00:37:35) Reflecting on Season 9 as a Whole

(00:43:59) Athena – Off the Hamster Wheel

(00:46:12) Harry – Feeling Helpless, Taking Action

(00:47:25) May & Ravi – Built for the Pressure

(00:50:12) Maddie & Josh – Crisis Management, Buckley Style

(00:52:14) Hen – Steady Hands, Steady Heart

(00:54:03) Chimney – Holding the Weight of the Team

(00:56:12) Buck – Ready or Not, Here Comes Fatherhood

(00:58:07) Eddie – Looking for God, Finding a Knife

(01:00:55) Queer Eddiemaxxing

(01:04:37) Eddie Can’t Take His Own “Chain of Command” Advice

(01:07:32) The Elevator is a Closet

(01:10:44) The Homoeroticism of Getting Stabbed

(01:12:54) Eddie’s Religious Queer Coding

(01:21:35) Buddiemaxxing

(01:23:54) Red String of Buddie NDEs (Parallels & Symbolism)

(01:29:29) Tia Pepa Said “That’s Family”

(01:33:53) Everything Keeps Coming Full Circle – Season Parallels

(01:36:44) Looking Towards Season 10 – What’s Next 🔮

(01:40:15) Our Wi$h Li$t

(01:43:40) Military Eddie, We’re Looking at You 👀

(01:49:33) Season 10 Character Summoning Circle 🤞🏼

(01:53:37) Will We See an Eddie & Theo Opening Emergency?

(01:56:28) Enter: The Buckley-Diaz Sitcom Era

(02:00:14) Buddie System Community Bulletin Board 📌

(02:02:28) Take a Buddie With You & Outro!