9-1-1 fans, rejoice! After 13 agonizing episodes, the show finally appears to be wrapping up a storyline that it never should have started in the first place. I’ll preface this by saying that I didn’t necessarily object to Eddie cheating on Marisol with a look-alike of his dead ex-wife. Not only was it the kind of big, ridiculous swing we’ve all come to expect from shows with Ryan Murphy’s name attached, but I also had no investment in Eddie’s relationship with Marisol. Heck, I’m still trying to forget the time he got weirded out because he found out she almost became a nun.
I even thought that Christopher discovering Eddie’s affair, and the subsequent fallout, could make for an interesting new dynamic between the beloved characters. Christopher abruptly moving to Texas with his grandparents felt a little extreme, but I figured it was done to make the Season 7 finale a bit more dramatic — to give it some zazz, as Nicole Kidman might say. I also assumed, as many viewers probably did, that Eddie and Christopher would be back under the same roof fairly early into Season 8. Instead, Christopher remained in Texas indefinitely, while his absence loomed over every aspect of Eddie’s life (and facial hair) like a dark cloud. Rather than getting to watch Eddie and Christopher work through their issues together on screen, we had to settle for watching Eddie wallow in self-pity until we barely recognized him anymore.
Thursday’s episode seems to have finally fixed that particular problem, with Eddie asking — no, telling — Christopher to move back in with him, following an eye-opening weekend at a chess tournament. In one of their first real moments of the season, Eddie came to Christopher’s rescue after he threw up in the middle of a heated match. As Eddie cleaned him up, Christopher admitted that he actually hates chess; he only played it because his grandfather enjoyed coaching him. “You’re moving back in with me, whether you like it or not,” Eddie said, to which Christopher raised absolutely no objections. “You’ll be my dad again?” Christopher asked, prompting this heartwarming response: “I’ve always been your dad, now I’m going to start acting like it.”
As much as I appreciated the emotional weight of that last line, it also irked me. Eddie may have a disastrous track record in the romance department, but he’s a great father. That’s always been one of his most admirable qualities, and I’m still not sure why it was ever really called into question. His indiscretion with Kim had everything to do with him and nothing to do with Christopher.
The way Eddie has been treated by his family this season, you’d think he was reentering society after serving prison time for some unspeakable offense. (Who’s writing this show, Marisol?) And am I crazy, or have Eddie’s parents become borderline villains in this situation? Ever since Eddie arrived in El Paso, they’ve been keeping him at arm’s length, pushing him further away from Christopher rather than helping them repair their relationship.
But where do we go from here? How can Eddie return to the 118 now that Christopher appears rooted in Texas? And even if Christopher wants to move back to Los Angeles, didn’t Eddie just sink his savings into that, uh, charming fixer-upper? And make no mistake, we need him back with the 118 — like yesterday. Because I’m clearly a font of joy today, here’s another gripe I have about this week’s episode: I can understand everyone at the 118 forgetting Hen’s birthday, they’re co-workers. I can even understand Denny forgetting, he’s just a kid. But are we really supposed to believe that wife-of-the-year Karen Wilson would let such an important date slip her mind? She’s the kind of person who would have been pestering Hen for weeks about how she’d like to celebrate. I’ve ranted long enough, so now it’s time to turn the mic over to you fine folks. How are you feeling about the Eddie storyline? And did you also find it hard to believe that Karen would forget Hen’s birthday?
