For the second time on this tv viewing season, I’ve discovered myself mourning the lack of an extremely highly effective, inspiring, uncommon love story.
It’s not typically that love tales seize me that a lot, despite the fact that I’ve come to understand romance extra over time (or at the least be extra forthcoming with myself and others about how a lot I take pleasure in a consistently denigrated style), however I digress.
Proper now, I’m reeling from the lack of considered one of my favourite tv {couples}: 9-1-1’s Bathena.
There’s nothing I like greater than older characters getting a second probability at love. Too typically, tv and movie prohibit like to younger folks, as if someway, as we become old, we lose out on discovering actual love once more.
When you consider that, it’s extremely bleak, however it’s additionally simply patently unfaithful.
This is among the many causes that Bathena happy me a lot. Throughout 9-1-1‘s run, we noticed how Athena and Bobby’s dynamic advanced from skilled camaraderie to one of many best love tales of all time.
It was such a wealthy, compelling arc, too. And this romance turned the blueprint for all others throughout the collection.
Different relationships discovered inspiration on this one, with all of its ups and downs, challenges, and triumphs, as a result of 9-1-1, mixed with the chic chemistry and work of Peter Krause and Angela Bassett, introduced us with a deeply genuine, messy, however stunning love story.
It’s what grounded the collection, as each characters turned those consistently doling out relationship recommendation and serving to their mates, colleagues, and subordinates whereas concurrently displaying that their knowledge and expertise in relationships didn’t preclude them from dealing with challenges and nonetheless evolving and rising as people and as a pair.
Bathena wasn’t an ideal couple as a result of they have been excellent folks. They have been an ideal couple as a result of they have been equally yoked and actual. They have been flawed, battled communication points, and every introduced their very own traumas and demons to this new relationship.
However they figured it out the way in which actual {couples} do. They labored via every little thing. They tackled the world and all of their very own baggage collectively and did all of the work it took to be real life companions.
As a result of they have been purported to be life companions, you already know, for life, and that was purported to final for the rest of the collection. It was this unstated settlement of the collection, or at the least I believed.
There are by no means sufficient phrases to adequately describe or clarify why this pairing was important and integral to the 9-1-1 viewing expertise and onscreen love tales.
We don’t see love tales like theirs too typically, and possibly that’s why I’m nonetheless shaking with rage over the truth that the 9-1-1 franchise gave us two highly effective variations of it with Bathena and 9-1-1: Lone Star‘s Grace and Judd and took them away from us on the similar time.
Can we pour one out for the suicidal males of religion with traumatic pasts who discovered renewed function and a will to reside due to the attractive ladies who saved them?
I do know Sierra McClain left of her personal accord, however I’ve mentioned my frustrations with how the collection ruined her reminiscence.
However Bathena was the true embodiment of second possibilities when it got here to like tales, one which was hopeful to depths that I can’t even start to unpack correctly.
Bobby Nash was a particular character for therefore many causes. Some of the distinguished ones was his potential to resonate with each kind of viewer.
I don’t know any followers of this collection who didn’t love this man. For a few of us, he represented the fathers we had or those we wished we had (I can personally attest to the latter).
To others, he was inspiring as a uncommon show of a person of religion onscreen who truly led and practiced his beliefs — how we think about Christianity must be reasonably than regardless of the heck folks delude themselves into working towards lately.
Bobby was the proper instance of a supremely flawed, complicated character who embodied humanity’s potential to rise above its faults and do and be good.
The lore of this character is so wealthy and tragic, whether or not it was a troubled childhood or the devastation of what occurred in Minnesota.
Bobby Nash’s disquieting and uncomfortably uncooked portrayal makes his tragic hero’s demise in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 15 all of the extra upsetting.
He spent a few years being suicidal. His suicidal ideation has reared its head typically all through the collection. When considered one of his final phrases to his spouse was that he was on “borrowed time,” it hit notably laborious, understanding his backstory.
Bobby was a person who genuinely believed he’d save as many lives as those he “took” due to that fireside, after which he’d pay the last word worth when it was over.
Discovering love via his Discovered household, positive, however notably Athena modified the trajectory of his life and gave him one thing to reside for and keep for past penance.
Whereas there’s nothing simplistic about somebody working via suicide ideation, love having that kind of energy — that stage of therapeutic for him — was such a poignant story.
Bobby saved lives, however it was Athena who saved his. By way of his relationship together with her and their marriage, he genuinely received a second probability at love and household, and he cherished each second.
Regardless of shedding a spouse and youngsters, he received a second probability at them once more with Athena, Could, and Henry. He didn’t take any of that flippantly, both. Along with the hope Bathena offered concerning love, the household they constructed was completely emblematic of the way you don’t must be blood to be household.
The message to anybody who struggles with the ideas Bobby has, that stage of darkish trauma and melancholy, is that you just’re by no means too darkish, too damaged, or too far gone to be cherished and to like.
There’s a mild on the finish of the tunnel if you happen to take the time to look. And Bobby discovered that in Athena.
The layers of Bathena’s dynamic and love story and the way it wades into some darkish and convoluted points whereas inspiring such religion and hope are tantamount to why this pairing profoundly impacts viewers (even those that don’t repeatedly tune into the collection).
And for Athena, tragedy marred a lot of her life. She misplaced the primary love of her life, and that had such a profound impression on shaping her and every little thing that she turned.
After all, Michael’s scenario was sophisticated after which stunning till he, too, perished.
Athena may simply have given up on the prospect of affection in a society that always tells us that there’s just one real love for every individual and little else. After her old flame, and Michael, the collection may’ve simply left issues there, however they didn’t.
As an alternative, she discovered Bobby, and never solely did she discover him, however she additionally pushed herself to open her guarded coronary heart and let love in, and it was the most effective decisions she ever made. It was additionally probably the most rewarding arcs of the collection to observe as a viewer.
She didn’t even know if she’d ever discover actual happiness once more, so it’s enriching to see a girl in her prime take a leap of religion once more as a result of it’s by no means too late.
And that’s what Bathena represented and delivered: the concept you’re by no means too damaged, too traumatized, too jaded, or too “outdated” for real love; it could actually discover you once more.
Given how highly effective this message is and its impression on viewers, it appears like a specific slap within the face that the collection took this from us. A relationship that was the purest illustration of hope and second possibilities went down in flames over an affordable try at “shock worth.”
It desecrates every little thing Bathena was: its impression, its messaging, its function, and the way it impressed.
I genuinely want to grasp why it was so troublesome to permit these two characters, who’ve been via hell and again, to have a fortunately ever after. Why weren’t they deserving of 1?
Why did a person who was damaged and eventually discovered the desire to reside must sacrifice himself and happiness after so lengthy believing he wasn’t worthy of it after which attaining it?
As for Athena, why is a girl who has spent a lifetime needing and having to be sturdy and resilient all the time pressured to step into that for the umpteenth time once more?
Now we’re left to reconcile with the person who spent a few years desirous to die, lastly reaching a wholesome psychological state in his life the place all he needed to do was reside, and the collection killing him off anyway.
The place’s the hope in that? Did they not contemplate how bleak, grim, and hopeless that comes throughout? Hell, did nobody contemplate how damaging that message is for anybody who battles the identical factor?
Positive, it’s poetic, in a way. Nonetheless, in a collection that spent eight seasons being ridiculous enjoyable escapism with no stakes, it’s a disconcerting strategy to undercut one of many collection’ most difficult however important story arcs with a demise like this.
Did we not spend eight seasons keen Bobby Nash to reside and championing him for each triumph in working via his psychological well being points?
Was there not real consolation in watching Bathena construct up this stunning relationship from scratch and apply embodying their vows to at least one one other, as each characters advanced for the higher and actually thrived with one another’s help?
Why couldn’t that be sufficient?
After a few years of constructing as much as Athena being in a spot the place she will be able to lastly be open to like once more and discover actual happiness and a future, as soon as once more, the thought course of was to drag the rug from underneath her toes.
What good is increase the most effective romantic storylines onscreen simply to chop that love story quick for scores and shock worth?
We’re not upping the stakes by depriving viewers of hope, inspiration, the fictional incarnation of perseverance, and the message that “if you happen to stick it out or get via your tough patches, there’s love and light-weight on the opposite aspect.”
All that does is debase this particular love story and all of the laborious work and years that went into it.
There’s nothing tragically stunning or poetic about Bobby’s demise or the destruction of Bathena.
It’s simply emotionally manipulative, merciless, and insulting.
Bathena was the spine of this collection. This isn’t a passionate assertion by a heartbroken fan; it’s fairly merely the reality.
After the removing of that factor, what’s left? Can it even maintain itself?
I genuinely don’t perceive how we are able to take away the guts of the collection, go away the soul — soulless, after which keep on.
There aren’t many onscreen love tales that go away such an indelible mark that they stick with me for a few years, however Bathena is, or was, considered one of them. The lack of Bathena is one thing I’ll by no means actually recover from … or forgive.
Over to you, 9-1-1 Fanatics. I’ve stated all I can say with out getting indignant once more, so I’ll flip it over to you.
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Let’s hold the dialog going — it’s the one method the great things survives… effectively, until you’re Bobby Nash, apparently. Hmph.
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