Well, that was an incredibly dark return to the season.
They didn’t leave us with a glimmer of light during Station 19 Season 6 Episode 7 unless you are a fan of Ross and Sullivan’s romance or the prospect of Jack returning to the station and building a relationship with his biological sister brings you joy.
But the Maya and Marina situations aren’t getting better anytime soon, and the series’ coverage of police brutality against Black men again was gratuitous and triggering.
It was an ambitious hour, yet it didn’t gain momentum until midway through. It was also one of those tonally off types of installments.
For some reason, we had Maya’s descent and Marina’s current dissolution, Dixon’s blackmail, hilarious Golden Girls-esque senior women on a scavenger hunt, and an emotionally damaging Crisis One call vying for our attention within the same hour.
At least two of those storylines were so heavy that the lightheartedness of the scavenger hunt arc didn’t fit with the rest of the hour.
It made things feel incredibly disjointed and frustrating. They expected us to be amused by sassy seniors joking about Chlamydia and getting Travis and Sullivan to take shirtless pictures with them for one minute.
Carina: Hey, you okay?
Jack: I thought she was dead.
But then the next, Maya is having a full emotional episode that requires psychological hold in the next scene, and a young Black man and the three WOC at the house facing down guns by the most demented fucking cops in Seattle in the next.
It was a lot. Too much. And these are the type of tonal shifts that are aggravating about this series and can make installments a muddled mish-mash of great performances and ridiculous plots.
For the lighter arc, the senior-aged ladies were cute. Surprisingly, Beckett seemed to have a soft spot for them and had no problems indulging them and encouraging their antics.
When they came in with one of them donning fuzzy handcuffs, it seemed like a storyline involving racy, randy seniors in a home having kinky fun.
The strongest part of the storyline was Sullivan bonding with the one woman and giving in to the shirtless picture. That experience opened his eyes to Ross’ perspective on her job and their relationship.
He came around to the idea and realized he would wait and follow her lead as long as it meant he had her. It was sweet, and they had a nice makeout session on the rooftop. The scene was shot beautifully with the sunset.
And after the evening Ross had — it felt good to see her happy for a bit.
Jack heading off to have coffee with his sister felt like a scene that didn’t have to get shoved into this installment.
But maybe it was to show how things are looking up for him since he gets to work at the station again after taking Maya’s spot.
Jack replacing Maya for the foreseeable future will most definitely cause some tension between the two, even if he was the person who found her and brought her to the hospital.
He was expressing how much he couldn’t afford to lose anyone, and it was a heartbreaking moment when he brought up Dean and how terrified he was that he could’ve lost Maya too.
He recognizes that she is his family, and it is a reminder of Jack’s losses and how unwell he’s been because of them. He’s been lost without Dean for a while now, and he’s just getting from underneath that.
The scene, while heartbreaking, was also unusual in its imbalance when it gave who the series has notoriously utilized as a third wheel in the Marina relationship more emotional stake in the scene than Maya’s wife.
Somehow, Jack went from wanting to shield and protect Carina from finding out about Maya before she was mentally and emotionally prepared for it to Carina providing him with more comfort in the waiting room.
But they made up for it with a load of angst for Carina and Maya with their every interaction once she was awake.
Fans of this relationship have been clinging to the notion that things will get better for these two, but as it stands, they’ve only gotten worse.
Maya was in such poor condition, but she was one of the most obstinate patients on earth who didn’t seem to value anything Teddy told her.
She’s still deep in her self-destructive mode, which made for some unpleasant scenes for her as she acted out multiple times while at the hospital.
Credit where it’s due, Danielle Savre delivered an incredible performance during this hour. It was so raw and visceral that it was brutal to watch.
There was nothing pretty about Maya or her state, but it was so real and provocative.
Even after the fall, it doesn’t seem like Maya has hit her rock bottom enough to want to make changes and willingly get the help she desperately needs.
And she’s continuing to destroy everything in her path, herself, her body, her job, and her marriage to Carina.
The ugliness and vitriol she spewed at Carina, mainly when Carina had no other choice but to implement a 5150 order, was chill-inducing.
Maya lashes out as her primary defense mechanism, and she knows how to go for the jugluar. She’s been doing that with Carina for a while now, and clearly, Carina can’t take it anymore.
It was such a low blow when Maya brought up Andrew, and you could see the hurt on Carina’s face, the way she appeared, as if the words themselves physically slapped her.
Maya: Oh, the lengths you’ll go to get your way. If you walk out that door, we’re done, okay? You hear me? You hear me? If you walk out that door, we’re done.
Carina: I lose you either way, bella. I’d rather lose you and have you be alive.
In reality, it makes you think of how hard this situation was for Carina when she’d spent her entire life around people having mental health episodes, and she’s often been the person in charge of getting them help or putting these types of holds on them for their own benefit.
Maya wanted to compare what she’s doing to when Carina was so depressed about Andrew she could barely pull herself together, but they’re not similar situations.
Carina’s method of mourning her brother didn’t endanger her life or those around her. She worked through things in her way, and they proved effective.
Maya is literally slowly killing herself with her behavior, and it’s gone far beyond giving her the space she needs to get herself together.
Carina made the difficult choice, and she’s been so brave and resilient through all of this, loving Maya when Maya is making it so hard and pushing her away.
They meant it when they exchanged the vows for better and worse, and it shows.
But Carina also has to think about what’s best for her own mental health and well-being. It devastated her to walk out of that room as Maya angrily shouted at her thing we all know she’ll regret.
Stefania Spampinato crushed that scene outside the hospital room as Carina cried.
The performances by the female stars of the series were all stellar. Savre, Spampinato, Doss, Ortiz, and Dandridge took their material and made magic out of it.
That said, there was nothing magical about that crisis one call.
At some point, it gets emotionally exhausting to see these fictional storylines wholly inspired by real tragedies and atrocities used “to spread awareness” or teach the same people the same lessons over and over again while subsequently triggering and traumatizing others in the process.
The case that inspired bits of this storyline was the horrific death of Elijah McClain—a sweet, shy, introverted man with anxiety and sensory issues who just wanted to get home.
It’s not up to him to know that his panic attack might upset you.
Vic
The Crisis One call blatantly pulls from this case that still feels far too fresh and painful despite McClain’s 2019 death.
It essentially presupposes what would’ve happened if the paramedics didn’t bend to the on-scene cops’ will and administer drugs that likely weren’t even needed in such excess that it killed a young man whose only crime was “looking suspicious” in a Suburban neighborhood.
It positioned the firefighters and paramedics, from Vic and Andy to Ross, as the good guys who had to plead with this gang of officers to let this child go and physically put their bodies between this man and half a dozen cops and their raised weapons.
With every panic attack, your heart broke for this man, but it also jumped into your throat as you awaited the outcome.
It simply doesn’t sit right that this particular scenario that’s so serious and real was gratuitously used to manipulate strong emotions out of viewers.
They dragged the plot on, thus milking all the rage, pain, and fear from viewers as we watched this situation continues to escalate and hope it didn’t end in a tragedy like it so often does in real life.
Station 19 is no stranger to tackling a myriad of social issues. Some things they manage well enough, and others, they don’t.
But we’re well into our fifth or more storyline with this similar topic. It’s redundant, and by now, it feels exploitative.
And for a series about first responders, they have yet to handle any situation with law enforcement with an ounce of nuance.
By now, they’ve fully vilified any character who dons a badge. Every cop in Seattle can’t be the antichrist or ineffectual at their jobs. And they’ve driven the police brutality storylines into the ground.
We had to sit back with bated breath and watch this situation continue to escalate while hoping that Andy and Vic, with Ross’s assistance, could save this Spanglish-speaking kid suffering from panic attacks and get him home for his mother’s birthday.
Ross was the true standout for this storyline, and again, Dandridge was amazing.
Her ability to call out each officer, breaking down all their moves and where they fell, was impressive. Her assessments of these people especially hit hard coming from her as a woman of color.
It speaks to the innate level of awareness that one is constantly under for their own survival.
It was enraging when she mentioned that none of the cops had their body cams on, and the trigger-happy cop couldn’t want to shoot the teen or anyone who moved.
And Dixon thought he had some pull and power, but knowing that people were staring out the window and streaming this standoff, the cops, the three female firefighters, and a civilian had forced him to back off.
He knew it wasn’t a great look, but he was still willing to throw his weight around, likely as retaliation because he was running for office and wanted to stick it to Travis.
There was no reason for Vic, Ross, and Andy to be on the receiving end of guns, just like it wasn’t for that kid. And one shudders to think how things would’ve played out if Vic and Andy weren’t there and didn’t call in the calvary.
Andy did a remarkable job of soothing the guy, speaking to him in Spanish, the language that may have interfered with his ability to follow all the cops’ orders,
She helped him through all his panic attacks, kept him from getting shot for running, and eventually, they got him home.
And all of that trauma took place when he wasn’t even the person of interest they were looking for.
The whole situation felt needlessly triggering, overly traumatic, and self-congratulatory for covering the topic.
Despite the great things on display with the actresses’ performances, one could feel nothing but pure anger that they even opted for this storyline at all.
And it still wasn’t designed to get the full breadth of the desired emotions and introspection because of other pressing storylines within the hour.
You are not going to take this kid on my watch.
Ross
Over to you, Station 19 Fanatics.
What are your thoughts on Carina’s decision to put Maya on a 5150? How did you feel about the police brutality case? Sound off below.
You can watch Station 19 online here via TV Fanatic.
Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.