Station 19 ended its strongest season yet this week with a wedding, two new couples, a near couple, and a breakup. One other couple is headed for rocky shores and at least one person is now unemployed. Keep reading for my ‘Station 19’ 4×16 review!
“I Choose You Forever”
The episode is set against the backdrop of Carina and Maya’s wedding. The two of them are overjoyed to be getting married, dancing in the kitchen to “Chapel of Love,” which has been stuck in my head since Thursday. Carina and Andy both encourage Maya to come out to her parents, but she doesn’t want to tell them about the wedding. Instead, she’s still trying to figure out what to wear to the ceremony. She has a bunch of white dresses and pantsuits. Here’s what confuses me. Did Maya buy all of these options? What is she going to do with the ones she doesn’t pick? Is she going to exclusively wear bridalwear for the foreseeable future? This seems like a highly impractical way to go about this.
Andy goes into sweet best friend mode and tells Maya how proud she is of her. Maya says she learned from Andy and Robert. Andy agrees she and Robert have been through a lot, but it’s clear things are not well in Surerraland.
On the way to the ceremony, Maya agrees to go tell her parents about the wedding. When she arrives at their house, her dad answers the door. Maya instantly says she’s bisexual and she’s marrying a woman today. She tells her mom that she doesn’t have to stay with her father anymore. If she wants to leave him, her mom will always have a bed at Maya’s house. Her dad tries to say something, but she shuts him down and leaves. Maya has come so far this season with being okay with defying authority in healthy ways. It’s weird to be proud of a fictional character, but I am.
The couple arrives at Kaminski’s, where Vic and the rest of the station have been setting up the wedding. Maya’s mother sneaks in just before the ceremony. Warren walks the brides down the aisle while Vic plays her ukulele and sings. Warren technically officiates. However, he doesn’t have much to do because Maya forgot to write vows. She and Carina both say I Do before he can even finish the question. The entire ceremony is maybe 90 seconds. This is the ideal wedding ceremony length.
Then the dance party starts. It is clear this is just the cast goofing off together. After the stressful season they’ve had both on and off camera, it’s joyous to watch them having fun.
“I’m Gonna Take The Win”
Warren has been cleared of all cancer following his surgery, but he’s on to a third opinion to make sure he’s really clear.
Dean also struggles with accepting good news. The police department wants to settle the lawsuit, but Dean wants real change. Condola encourages him to accept the settlement for two reasons. First, it’s a significant amount of money for Joyce, which is a real change for her. Secondly, she wants to date him, which she can’t do if she’s his lawyer. Dean breaks the news that he’s in love with someone else. This would have a lot more impact if we had more than maybe three scenes with Condola because her kiss felt like it came out of nowhere.
Dean seeks out advice from Warren and Vic. They encourage him to take the settlement as a win. Vic tells him if they’re willing to settle, it means they see him as a threat. She thinks the country is changing, and that means the institutions could change. He asks how she can be such an optimist. She adorably says she has to balance him out.
Dean decides to take the settlement as a win. Warren also decides he’s going to take his win and stop seeking out additional opinions on his cancer. I love the way they wrapped both of these storylines up. It makes sense that Dean’s lawsuit wouldn’t go to trial. It also makes sense he would struggle with accepting a settlement. As Dean points out, though, the lawsuit ends, but this is just the first step towards real change. As for Warren, he is definitely a person who would expect to have bad news waiting for him. It can be just as hard to accept good news when you’re prepared for bad news.
“You Gotta Find Your Happy”
Travis’s dad tells him he’s in love for the first time in his life, naturally with his “golfing friend.” He also wants to apologize for ever making Travis feel bad about who he loved. His dad wants him to have someone who makes him this happy. Travis knows he has feelings for Emmett, but he hasn’t been able to tell him.
He gets some encouragement from Vic, and surprisingly from Theo, to tell Emmett. First, Travis and Theo have to talk about Vic. He asks if Theo really likes Vic that much. Theo says it gutted him when he realized Vic was Travis’s best friend because she’s the greatest person ever and Travis hates him. Travis tells him he doesn’t hate him. When Theo gets a chance later, he asks if Emmett is Travis’s new guy. Theo tells Travis that Michael wouldn’t want him to be alone.
I love the way they’re rebuilding the friendship between Travis and Theo. It plays well into the love triangle between Dean, Vic, and Theo because now, we have a vested reason to like Theo. He’s not just the sacrificial lamb on the way to an endgame couple. It’s wholly possible that Theo could end up with Vic. Plus, connecting him to Michael grows Travis’s character. I typically hate love triangles, but I like this one, which I didn’t expect.
Travis finally tells Emmett he likes him. Emmett brushes him off at first, saying that getting over him was the hardest thing he ever did. He loves their friendship, but then he decides to go for it and kisses Travis. Emmett has really grown on me. I like him with Travis. They’ve developed them into an interesting couple, and I’m excited to see where they go from here.
“Some Real Soul Love”
Outside of focusing on the lawsuit, Dean spends the episode deciding whether to tell Vic about his feelings. Jack and Warren are both Team Dean/Vic. They point out all the reasons he needs to tell her. They could both die tomorrow. She could meet someone new. Dean worries it’s not the right place. Then he tells them he thinks she’s going to start something with Theo. Warren was completely in the dark about both the Theo/Vic relationship and Theo’s connection to Travis, so he had a lot of gossip to catch up on.
Dean tries a couple of times to catch Vic alone. He adorably goes up to tell her that it’s not fair how good she is at everything. It’s the most awkward I’ve ever seen Dean and it made me love him that much more. She does not pick up on the fact he’s trying to flirt with her.
Anthony and Lenya appear to be Team Theo/Vic since they invited him to Maya and Carina’s wedding, which was pretty bold of them. Travis also gives Vic his blessing. While they are dancing together, Travis tells Vic that she will always be his person, but her being with Theo wouldn’t be a friendship-ender. It’s such a sweet moment between the two that is about much more than her dating someone. It’s about Travis’s personal growth this season and how deep their friendship truly is.
Just as Warren and Bailey have convinced Dean to tell Vic, he goes outside to find her making out with Theo. Here’s why I should have known this would happen. I was so sure that Dean and Vic were going to get together that I cleaned my living room. In case I needed to do a victory lap around the coffee table, I didn’t want to trip on anything. So, now I have a clean living room for no reason. Maybe it’s that Barrett Doss has chemistry with everyone, but I can also root for Vic and Theo, so I wasn’t devastated. I still am ultimately Team Dean/Vic, but I love a good slow burn.
“You Don’t Love Me, Jack”
Inara’s sister has moved to California and is working on cleaning herself up. She wants Inara to come with her. Marsha wants Jack to go to California with Inara, but he’s on the fence. He seeks out advice from Andy about whether he should propose, but she tells him not to. She says she and Robert jumped into marriage and it wasn’t a good decision. Inara also doesn’t want Jack to propose. She knows he doesn’t love her. He loves their family, and she does, too. She can’t keep getting Marcus’s hopes up, though. Inara and Marcus are going to move to California, but she promises Jack they’ll always have love for him.
I’m sad to see Inara go. Colleen Foy is an absolute joy. I really liked this storyline, but it also makes sense for it to end this way. Jack wanted to love Inara more than he did. He needs to do some work on himself and find someone he loves as a person and not just as someone to save. He’s had a lot of growth this season and I’m excited to see what he does next.
“What I Did Was Save 19”
All throughout the episode, there has been tension between Andy and Robert over something that happened at a house fire two days earlier. Throughout the episode, we find out what happened. There were an unknown number of people inside. As the day progressed, they kept finding more people to bring out of the fire. Ambulances got sent off and none were returning because they were backed up across the city.
Then there was Zaza, a little neighbor boy who went into the house to try to help the great grandmother who lived there. He got caught in the fire and was disoriented. Eventually, he was found unconscious in the closet with severe burns. The nearest ambulance is 8 minutes away. The commanding officer says protocol is to wait for the ambulance. Maya goes against those orders and takes the boy in the fire truck. She tells the commanding officer she doesn’t want to prioritize protocol and fear of lawsuits over a child’s life.
After the fire, Andy and Robert get completely reamed by the chief for following Maya’s orders. He says he should fire them and Maya. Then he pulls Robert aside and asks for his opinion. First, Robert tries to defend Maya and says she’s a good captain. As the chief points out the ways Maya has been “getting cocky” by supporting the protests and defying police, Robert sees an opportunity. He tells the chief he can get the station in order if he becomes captain. It’s so underhanded, but it also completely fits with what we’ve seen from Robert all season. He has been desperate to get his career back on track.
At the wedding, Andy tells Robert he threw them over to help his career, but he argues he only did it to save the station. Andy’s issue is that he immediately offered himself up as a replacement. Robert says he knows that 19 is Pruitt’s legacy and he wanted to save his wife’s family. Andy sarcastically says he’s the hero of his own story. Before he can argue with her any further, everyone gets an email that Maya has been relieved of her duties. However, Maya is off dancing with Carina and doesn’t know yet that she’s been fired.
That’s where we leave the crew for the season. It’s been a rollercoaster, but of all the shows attempting to address the Black Lives Matter movement, Station 19 has by far done the best. It’s enriched the show, rather than seeming like a box to check, which has been how most shows have felt. I’m genuinely excited to see what next season brings us. How are you feeling after this season finale? Find us on Twitter @capeandcastle to share your ‘Station 19’ 4×16 thoughts. Be sure to check our site for more content!
