9-1-1 Season 7 Episode 4 Review: Buck’s Struggle – Troubled and Confused

Never has the title of a 9-1-1 episode rang truer than this one.

The hit drama celebrated 100 episodes with 9-1-1 Season 7 Episode 4 an hour, a massive change of pace from the heavy, action-packed hours that the season began with.

The series got back to basics, and those basics were the characters. And it was undoubtedly an installment worthy of plenty of discussion.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the hour, major congratulations to the cast and crew of this series for reaching 100 episodes.

Back in the day, when networks gave series longer leashes to sink or swim, and the season episode counts were much farther north of 20, hitting that kind of milestone was much more commonplace.

But that’s not the reality of the television industry currently, as all of us who love the medium know very well.

And with the 9-1-1 Season 8 renewal news, it’s easy to see this series continuing for quite some time because, truly, what’s stopping it?

Getting into the momentous hour, there were two main storylines at play here, with Athena dealing with Harry’s unexpected arrival back home and Buck’s unexpected feelings about Eddie’s new friendship.

9-1-1 took a page out of The Bold and the Beautiful playbook and aged Harry up like we wouldn’t notice! They made a joke or two about his growth spurt, but it was more like a whole new actor spurt.

Harry came in cooking waffles, with a story at the ready, like it wasn’t entirely suspicious that Athena and Bobby weren’t aware that a teenager was traveling cross-country to come to stay with them.

Athena was so wrapped up in seeing her son and just having him back that her naturally suspicious instincts may have failed her momentarily, but she’s been married long enough to Bobby for them to rub off on him.

Finding out that Harry was lying wasn’t the shock, but that he was running from the law? That certainly wasn’t something I saw coming.

There have been a few times throughout the series where there have been fascinating and necessary conversations about Athena’s role in law enforcement and how it affects her loved ones.

Athena swore an oath to serve and protect, which she upholds in all aspects of her life. But as her loved ones, it must be difficult to separate her from the badge, as they’re so intertwined.

Harry did the wrong thing by running, and that was never up for debate. He was scared and he ran away, point blank. He was probably hopeful nothing would come of the altercation, and even so, he was optimistic that Athena would be on his side.

This story hit deep on so many levels, from Harry’s pleas to his mother to essentially choose who she was going to be in the moment: a cop or his mother, to Athena’s pleas for Harry to understand his position as a young black man in this society.

Athena Nash-Grant is a mother first. Still, during that initial conversation, with emotions running so high, Athena straddled that line between cop and mother, wanting to get the facts and already thinking ahead to what this meant for Harry in the long run.

It wasn’t like Harry was facing detention at school or something. There was a warrant out for his arrest, and it felt like she didn’t believe Harry fully understood the gravity of his choices.

But Harry wasn’t understanding why he wasn’t fully being heard by the one person on the planet he wanted to listen to him.

It was a miscommunication in its most basic form.

When the two met again to talk, it was with heavy hearts but more open minds. Harry may have skipped a few years in canon, but he’s still a kid, and he needed to have that conversation with Athena to fully realize the enormity of what could have happened and what was currently happening.

Is it fair to put the pressure of your community on the soldiers of a teenager? No. But it’s the reality of life as a black person.

Harry was being profiled unjustly and was naturally upset, disappointed, and probably terrified. He was feeling a host of emotions and was more than justified in feeling that way, but he put himself in a situation that could have ended badly.

Hell, if we’re honest, he may have reacted in all the right ways, and it still ended badly.

Harry: If what I did was so wrong, what would have been the right thing?

Athena: Sometimes it is not right or wrong. It is about making it home alive. And you are old enough to understand that now.

But Harry needed to have that conversation and understand that even when it’s hard, the correct reaction may be to walk away and see another day.

It was an intense story to welcome Harry back into the fold, but it was played so beautifully by everyone. And interspersing it with that devastating emergency involving the woman who killed her son? Heartbreaking.

The thing is, Athena wasn’t looking at a stranger when she saw Harry (let’s skip past the obvious joke, okay), but a kid who made a mistake and needed some guidance.

And we’re all guilty of that from time to time. It doesn’t make us strangers.

Someone who was a stranger, though, was Tommy Kinard. Well, he was a stranger to Buck, who didn’t know him much outside of his assist with the helicopter on 9-1-1 Season 7 Episode 3, but Buck wanted to know more.

Tommy has a checkered past, to put it mildly, and it was highly disappointing that his re-introduction this season has placed him firmly in the camp of “cool guy” without doing much, or anything, to address his past behaviors.

He wasn’t someone I would have ever considered cool when we met him, and no amount of Buck and Eddie fangirling over him will make that a reality.