9-1-1 – May Day Review/Recap
9-1-1 – May Day – is episode 16 of season 5. May Day aired Monday, May 2nd. The episode is full of so much action and you see all your favorite characters in action. This episode left this writer’s jaw dropped at times.
Warning: This article contains spoilers from Monday night’s episode “May Day“. Read at your own risk!
The episode begins with a typical day at the 911 call center; with a police chase underway, as May (Corinne Massiah) gets a call from the driver’s girlfriend. As she is assisting the girlfriend, May also attempts to assist Claudette (Vanessa Williams) in where the police should go. Claudette uses May’s idea but does not acknowledge that she took it nor give May the credit.
Typical Chaos
It’s chaotic at the call center the next day as the center is going paperless and a new fire suppression system is being installed. May is frustrated since Claudette diverted the ambulance going to her call to another call that had a higher priority. Sue (Debra Christofferson) orders both girls to follow her and takes them to the quiet room; basically, she was putting them into time out.
Meanwhile, as Carson (Nick Cafero) was working on the fire suppression system, the system alarms started going off before sparks, and then an explosion happened. This causes a train reaction as the server room is alerted that there is a fire and starts the fire suppression system. What the system does is remove all the oxygen out of the room to suppress the fire. Eddie (Ryan Guzman) jumps into action as he discovers someone in the server room, he is able to get them out but follows smoke down a hallway where he then discovers the fire in the records room. But it is discovered that the fire system is no longer active when he pulls the alarm.
May Day
Eddie calls May Day over the radio that the dispatch center is on fire; multiple units are called out onto the scene. Eddie informs the 118 that the records room is fully involved, and that the fire could spread to the third floor and which is the main floor. Captain Bobby (Peter Krause) issues out orders; he orders Hen (Aisha Hinds) to set up a triage in the parking lot.
Next, he orders Chimney (Kenneth Choi) and a team from the 133; he recruits his brother Albert Han (John Harlan Kim); to raise the ladders and attack the fire from the corner window. Lastly, he orders Buck (Oliver Stark) and Lucy (Arielle Kebbel) to attack the fire from the source on the inside.
While all this is happening May and Claudette are still in the quiet room; not made aware of what is happening outside or the danger of the fire. May gave a deep speech and then talked about what she was not in college but she needed to make a decision. Claudette tells her that she needs to go to college and that the job of being a dispatcher comes at a heavy price.
Up In Flames
It comes to Bobby’s knowledge that 5 senior dispatchers are still taking calls on the third floor and that May is still in the building and that the quiet room is directly over the fire. Bobby and Eddie join Lucy and Buck in heading inside to the fire. May and Claudette realize that something is very wrong as the room is becoming very hot, as the two head out of the room they discover that the hallway leading to the room is in flames. Trapping them. May takes the lead as Claudette doesn’t like fire as she has old fire burns on her back.
Upon hearing that the fire has reached the third floor, fire units outside began to fear that the roof of the building may also be affected along with the radio tower that links emergency vehicles in the city; not just downtown but to the valley as well. The captain of 133 sends the Han brothers and a team to the roof to start venting it and secure the radio tower. Upon discovering Carson was missing, Buck and Eddie located him in the basement and reassured him that it wasn’t his fault the fire had begun. And in Buck’s typical fashion overshares the time that a firetruck fell on his leg.
During this time the fire has reached the inside of the quiet room and Bobby is doing all that he can to get to May; Lucy is battling the fire Bobby is breaking through a wall. Bobby gets to May just in time as the fire engulfs the quiet room and surrounding area.
One Team
As the fire continues to grow, it is becoming more and more dangerous. With the Han brothers on the roof, venting; when the roof collapsed and almost took out Albert Han down with it. The collapse trapped Bobby and May in the rubble. Lucy is first on the scene before Buck and Edde join her following Chimney and Albert as well; all of them calling out to Captain Bobby and eventually finding him and May and lifting part of the roof off of them.
Toward the end of the episode, everybody is at the hospital as Bobby needs to get an MRI and have his legs examined. The team is in the waiting room waiting for news about Bobby; when Claudette comes in as she coded in the ambulance. The doctors called it after she had been out for 12 minutes. When asked what happened, Jonah (Bryce Durfee) says that her pressure bottomed out, and couldn’t get the rhythm back. Jonah then says “I should have been able to save her”. Hen is finding it all very weird, as Claudette was fine in triage, but it was also Jonah’s comment.
