‘Station 19’ Season 4 Premiere: Mommy Not-So-Dearest (RECAP)
Premiere
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 4, Episode 1 of Station 19, “Nothing Seems the Same.”]
If “Nothing Seems the Same” on Station 19 — as the title of the Season 4 premiere asserts — it might be because the storyline fast-forwards into the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the firefighters discussing quarantine bubbles and delivering toilet paper to parents!
We do, however, get flashbacks that pick up where Season 3 left off, with Andy (Jaina Lee Ortiz) coming face-to-face with her mother, Elena (Patricia De León), after decades of believing she was dead. Elena explains she fled to New York City because she wasn’t cut out to be a mother, both loved and resented her newborn daughter, became depressed and unstable, and had no mental health support. She claims she wasn’t serious when she told Pruitt to tell Andy that she died, but apparently, Pruitt took the advice. “My father decided it would be less painful for me to mourn you than to know you abandoned me,” Andy says.
The fire of the week, meanwhile, is a doozy: A quarantine-breaking group of teens attempt a roadside car repair, pour gasoline on their radiator, and spark a brushfire. As the Station 19 crew battles the flames, Andy comes face-to-face with Robert (Boris Kodjoe), with whom she broke up, apparently.
You see, now that he’s been busted stealing narcotics from the aid car, Robert is now working for Mavis, a private firefighting company that protects mansions from the wildfires with the help of unpaid convicts. When he hears about the brushfire, Robert bails on his Mavis colleague and joins Station 19 at the scene. A surprised Maya puts him to work and, once the crisis is handled, the team —minus Robert — takes a victory lap through a suburban street where Seattle residents have lined up on the sidewalk with handmade signs to show their gratitude.
Robert, realizing that it’s not so noble to put convicts to work putting out fires for rich people, quits his work with Mavis and heads to the station to apologize to Maya. He expresses sincere remorse, and Maya accepts his apology.
Another flashback, meanwhile, reveals that Robert and Andy didn’t break up acrimoniously: Robert asked Andy for 90 days of separation so he can focus on his sobriety. “I want to live a long, long life, and love you every minute of it,” he says.
Robert is on the hand at the station — as are all the other Station 19 members —when Andy livestreams a eulogy for her dad for Pruitt’s virtual memorial. “He created a home at Station 19, and everyone under his roof was his kid,” she says. “He gave me the gift of a group of people who I feel closer to than any blood brother or sister.”
In other news, Vic (Barrett Doss) decides to move in with Travis (Jay Hayden), who could probably use a pal after he found his dad on a gay dating app. (His dad’s come-on? “Let me be your daddy.”) And Dean (Okieriete Onaodowan) is thinking about quarantining with Sasha (Kristen Henry King), but he’s clearly still holding a torch for Vic. Oh, and Mr. Nelligan (Robert Picardo) — a hypochondriac patient from Grey’s Anatomy Season 14 — shows up at the station begging for a COVID-19 test. Throwback humor, people!
Station 19, Thursdays, 8/7c, ABC
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