9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 13 Is the One Where Everyone Forgets Hen’s Birthday and Eddie Checks His Parents

Hen feels invisible when everyone forgets her birthday, while Eddie feels on the outside of Christopher's life during 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 13.

The post 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 13 Is the One Where Everyone Forgets Hen’s Birthday and Eddie Checks His Parents appeared first on TV Fanatic.

Have you ever felt invisible?

At one point or another, everyone has that feeling that everyone is looking through them, whether that be at work, at home, or within a relationship. It’s not an uncommon feeling, but it’s still painful.

9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 13 took a deeper look at that feeling through an overarching storyline that connected directly with Hen and Eddie’s continued Texas adventures, which took an exciting and emotional turn in another engaging and enjoyable hour.

I don’t think anyone would say that Hen Wilson is invisible.

Hen has a family that loves her, friends, and a found family that adores her. She’s surrounded by people who continuously show up for her and shower her with the love and adoration she deserves.

But they are only human, and humans will always be capable of making mistakes.

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Hen’s storyline felt like someone was reminiscing about Samantha Baker and Jake Ryan and decided to imagine a Sixteen Candles-level scenario where everyone misses your birthday, but it turns deadly when they come into contact with someone else who’s constantly ignored and finally snaps.

Some of the most enjoyable 9-1-1 hours over the years are ones where a singular character or emergency lasts throughout, and this hour gave us Archie.

Poor, poor, Archie.

Archie was doing his best, and you could tell he was a kindhearted individual who couldn’t catch a break and seemed more than content with things because he refused to speak up.

That was never more apparent than when he was stuck under that Murphy Bed, listening to his fiancée/girlfriend hook up with his own cousin. Instead of hulking out and ripping through the bed, he wanted to disappear rather than face the situation head-on.

And hell, that’s his right. Some people are much more content to keep their heads down, and there’s nothing wrong with that in general.

But when it becomes your entire personality, you’ll get walked all over, which was a common theme in Archie’s life.

9-1-1 loves to beat you over the head with things to ensure you really understand what they’re trying to tell you, and it was a little much just how often Archie was overlooked.

It’s one thing to have a face or name that’s a little forgettable, and it’s another to truly have everyone look right through you at literally all times and then let you know about it when they deign to acknowledge your existence.

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With each emergency, I assumed Archie would get more and more fed up, especially because we all saw the promos and knew that at some point, all these accidents and all these times being ignored were going to culminate in Archie holding people hostage on that Metro bus!

But Archie was truly content going through life just as he had always done. He didn’t stick up for himself, try to make himself more noticeable, or care to change anyone’s perception.

And again, that was his right!

Having the worst day of his life coincide with Hen, the one person who continuously saw him, was a twist of fate that could be said to have turned Archie’s life upside down, though that will never be on Hen Wilson.

Archie’s choices were his and his alone.

But speaking of Hen, she woke up that day excited for her birthday, as many people do, and I loved the little montage of her trying on different outfits and pulling her kicks out.

We haven’t gotten nearly enough of Hen at home this season, 9-1-1!

It was unfortunate that her good day didn’t last very long when it became apparent that Karen and the kids did not realize it was her birthday, and look, haven’t we all been there before?

I am certainly guilty of forgetting what day it is from time to time and, thus, maybe neglecting to wish someone a happy birthday the first time I see them! I once broke up with someone and called my mom to cry, forgetting it was her birthday until the end of the thirty-minute call.

I’m still hearing about that, but things do happen! But even if you can acknowledge that, it doesn’t make it sting any less.

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And Hen was feeling stung, especially as the hits kept coming from everyone but Athena.

Can we talk about Hen’s mom for a second? What exactly was her problem? Everyone, MINUS ATHENA, forgot Hen’s birthday, but once Toni was confronted, she had such a poor attitude about it, and for what?

She made a mistake, and instead of apologizing and trying to make things right like everyone else in Hen’s life was trying to do, she got snarky and then tried to make HEN feel bad about herself.

It was such an odd reaction to someone being understandably upset that the people she loves most forgot an important day in her life. It certainly did not warrant the amount of snark and lack of compassion Toni decided to bestow upon her daughter in that moment.

I’m going to be annoyed about that for a while.

Everyone else in Hen’s life was much more understanding, especially when Hen let it slip during her impassioned speech to Archie after his second emergency of the day.

Hen meant well with what she said, and she was not lying, even if her speech was more about herself than Archie. She felt all the emotions at that moment as she continued to see this human being in front of her act like he was a burden for simply existing.

Because everyone deserves to take up space and be seen, and you shouldn’t have to apologize for that.

Hen had no way of knowing he would take her words and twist them into something else entirely and then decide to hold a bunch of people hostage on a bus, though.

You could see when it sunk in for Hen that Archie was the one on that bus. It was funny, in a sad way, that she’d just met that man briefly and really didn’t know him, yet she also knew him better than anyone at that specific moment.

She knew that he’d reached his limit in a life that wouldn’t stop beating him down, and he’d done something drastic and obviously awful, but she knew that she was the one person out there who had the chance to get through to Archie because, against all odds, she actually saw him straight away.

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The conversation between Archie and Hen on the bus was devastating when you consider the main points.

Archie was lost, at his lowest point, and he snapped. And Hen did the same thing to him that everyone else did in the end, except she also didn’t because she showed him more care than seemingly anyone had in a long time.

I liked the image of them walking out hand-in-hand, but I gasped loudly when he reached into his pocket because I thought for sure they were going to turn this story into something tragic by having the invisible man die on the streets for everyone to see.

Instead, they kept the lightness of the story going, and he was just hauled off to jail instead.

Since Mara returned home to Hen and Karen during 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 4 which was the culmination of a long-running plot, Hen hasn’t had a major storyline outside of 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 5, and while this was a one-and-done situation, it was still good to see her in the limelight.

It’s always a nice reminder of how brave, empathetic, and considerate Hen has always been. She’s the backbone of the 118, and hours like this remind you of that.

Speaking of considerate, you know who’s not considerate? Helena Diaz.

Part two of Eddie Takes Texas had Eddie in the next stage of his journey there, which is to say he was still adjusting but also thinking about what came next—specifically, bringing Christopher home with him.

9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 12 was all about Eddie and what it meant for him to be back in Texas, as well as those tentative first steps in reestablishing himself in Christopher’s life.

When they ended the episode in that embrace, with Christopher making sure his dad knew that he wanted him there with him, that felt like step one of their journey back together again.

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Here, Eddie was ready for Christopher to come live with him, but as we’ve seen from Eddie since Christopher decided he wanted to leave Los Angeles, Eddie has tried to be respectful of Christopher’s feelings because he knew that he was in the wrong.

Whether you agree with the way he approached the situation initially or not, Eddie’s been very consistent in trying to do what he felt was right for Christopher. But in doing so, it comes across at times like he’s letting Christopher dictate things.

But I think Eddie harbors so much guilt about what transpired and how hurt and emotionally scarred Christopher was by seeing him and Kim together that he feels not only does he deserve what he gets.

He wants to do everything in his power to show Christopher how sorry he is and let Christopher decide on his terms how they move forward.

Of course, I assume all this because the show refuses to give us a conversation between father and son about what happened in Los Angeles. And I can’t see into the future, so that conversation may come at the same time they talk about really anything involving the words Los Angeles.

For now, though, Eddie was stuck in this place of wanting Christopher to come home but not wanting to ask just yet. He was so fearful of what might happen, but it became more and more apparent as time went on that he was more fearful of losing his place in Christopher’s life and Christopher’s unhappiness.

Two things about the Diaz parents can be true. They stepped in for their grandson when he needed them, and Eddie can be grateful to them, but he can also be incredibly frustrated with them for overstepping at every turn.

Christopher has been under their care, but Christopher is still Eddie’s son. That has never changed, and it never will.

They weren’t actively trying to push Eddie out but weren’t actively inviting Eddie in either. But to be fair, some of that does fall on Eddie.

He needed to stop letting them control everything related to Christopher, even if he was trying not to disrupt the life and balance that Christopher had created.

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I’ve been loving the FaceTime calls Eddie and Buck are having because Buck is Eddie’s safe space. He’s the place where Eddie can share his fears and let himself openly lament his situation without feeling judged or insecure.

When speaking with Ryan Guzman after the previous installment, he described the importance of Eddie knowing that he has Buck’s unwavering support as”… knowing that there is a safety net around you and not just a safety net but a sounding board; it’s just the next layer of life.”

That was truly on display every time we saw Buck and Eddie interact, whether it was when they were cooking together while Buck tried to help soothe Eddie’s nerves or when Eddie struggled with discovering he wasn’t going to be able to road trip with Christopher and Buck telling him to ‘dad up.’

Buck wasn’t giving some earth-shattering advice, but Eddie had been so grounded in wanting to do what he felt was best for Christopher that he wasn’t necessarily looking deeper into the situation.

‘Dad up’ basically meant insert yourself the way you should be because Christopher is your son, and you want to be and need to be wherever he is.

Eddie rolling up to the chess event and immediately feeling invisible again was a nice nod to the hour’s theme, but it also felt like the final straw.

Strangers believing that Ramon was Christopher’s father? That would have been my breaking point.

The show did a good job of not letting on that Christopher wasn’t as psyched about chess as it may have seemed, though, in retrospect, we haven’t heard much from Christopher, as we often hear about Christopher’s feelings via Helena.

Collectively in all these seasons of 9-1-1, we haven’t spent a ton of time with Helena and Ramon, but it’s pretty damn obvious they are overbearing as hell, and every time we do see them, that much is always evident.

Christopher loves his grandparents and is comfortable with them, hence his calling them during 9-1-1 Season 7 Episode 10 when he needed them. But when you’re a kid and the adults around you are domineering, you either clam up or you rebel.

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Both Christopher and Eddie, who love Helena and Ramon, tried their best to do what they felt was expected of them but hit a point where they could no longer pretend.

How could you not feel awful for Christopher as he sat there with all those eyes on him, which would make even the most accomplished chess player nervous, knowing that he wasn’t even doing something he enjoyed?

It was so crucial for Eddie to be there in that moment to see him (God, the theme was theme-ing extra hard during this one) and comfort him in the way that only a parent could do.

That whole afternoon was the turning point for Eddie to stop worrying about whether he was disrupting anything and just be Christopher’s dad, complete with bringing him home with him and not caring at all what his parents had to say about it.

The conversation between Eddie and his mother was a LONG time coming, and it was hilarious that it happened while Eddie was packing up his son’s belongings and getting him out of that house in a way he obviously wasn’t able to do as a kid.

His parents needed to be put in their place as grandparents, and when Eddie broke down all the ways in which they failed him as a kid, I applauded him because a lot of pent-up frustrations came out, and it was good for Helena to hear them.

Helena and Ramon aren’t horrific people, but they seem to lose sight of their role at times and forget that Christopher has a loving, active, and present parent. They are the grandparents, and that is IT.

Will the Diaz parents have learned anything from this situation? Only time will tell.

Right now, though, let us all bask in the beauty of knowing Eddie and Christopher are back together again and working on their relationship.

The only question now becomes: when do they start talking about Los Angeles?

I don’t think we’ve heard either of them utter the words, and it’s making me wonder where all this is headed. We need the Diaz boys back home, and I’m starting to get nervous. (Calm me in the comments, please!)

Loose Ends

• Eddie’s line to Helena about making sure Ramon didn’t lose his seat on the bus was so petty, and Guzman’s line delivery and facial expressions were perfect— absolutely no notes.

• I needed about ten more minutes of that Henren and Bathena double date because I know the ladies sip on the wine and get to gossiping while Bobby looks on with a smile.

• Hearing Christopher ask Eddie if he’ll be his dad again was heartbreaking. My heart hurts to think that Christopher was walking around believing Eddie wasn’t his father during the months they were apart.

• Buck doing chores for Hen to assuage his guilt over forgetting her birthday is such a Buck thing to do. He’d keep it up for weeks if he thought it’d make her happy.

• I’m so glad I added Chimney and Karen to my favorite duo’s list because I know Chimney ran to his phone after Hen called them all out and rang Karen so they could freak out together about missing Hen’s birthday.

9-1-1 Season 8 has been on a roll with solid hour after solid hour, and this was another good one!

Can you believe we only have five more episodes to go?

Let me know what you thought about this one in the comments below so we can discuss it!

You can watch 9-1-1 on ABC at 8/7c on Thursdays.

Watch 9-1-1 Online

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The post 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 13 Is the One Where Everyone Forgets Hen’s Birthday and Eddie Checks His Parents appeared first on TV Fanatic.