Content note: This episode includes discussion of suicide and attempted suicide.

In 1x03 “Next of Kin,” 9-1-1 takes its first big swing at found family and uses a piece of rebar through Chimney’s skull to get there. Meanwhile, Athena and Michael face the terrifying aftermath of May’s suicide attempt, Abby is forced to confront what caring for her mother can realistically look like, and a bouncy castle finally proves that children’s birthday parties are inherently hostile environments.

This episode, we’re talking:

🎈 A bouncy castle on the edge of a cliff, the Santa Ana winds, and several adults making choices their insurance company would not approve of

🔥 Athena reminding May that she is “special and bright and filled with holy fire” while the Grant family tries to survive an unimaginable crisis

🧠 Chimney lying about dinner, proposing to a woman who does not appear to like him, fighting with Bobby, and immediately meeting the narrative at highway speed

🏠 Abby’s complicated mix of love, duty, guilt, and martyrdom as her family considers memory care for her mother

This episode is emotionally ambitious, structurally uneven, and trying very hard to be load-bearing. But somewhere between Bobby declaring that Chimney’s family is “right here” after knowing these people for approximately three episodes and Buck offering the world’s least reassuring bedside pep talk, the 118 begins transforming into the deeply codependent little trauma family we came here to love.

xoxo,
Fandom on the Rocks

9-1-1 on the Rocks has survived its first shift, and unfortunately, Buck has already acquired significant workplace trauma.

This week on 9-1-1 on the Rocks, we’re covering 1x02, “Let Go,” an episode about all the ways people try to hold on when everything around them is falling apart. Buck learns that wanting to save someone doesn’t mean he can, Abby welcomes the relentlessly competent Carla Price into her home and immediately recruits her as a best friend and romantic adviser, and Athena tries to keep her family functioning while Michael’s revelation continues to crack it open.

Also on this episode:

• Buck’s first devastating loss on the job and why “I will not let you go” tells us almost everything we need to know about him.

• Season one’s startlingly dark discussions of suicide, grief, isolation, and the limits of what first responders can protect people from.

• Angela Bassett delivering a performance so raw it changes the temperature of the entire show.

It’s heavy. It’s messy. Carla is already running the place, and Buck Buckley has officially begun collecting trauma like it’s part of his LAFD benefits package.

xoxo,
Fandom on the Rocks

9-1-1 on the Rocks has officially entered the firehouse.

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the newest Fandom on the Rocks podcast. We’re kicking off our brand-new recap series of 9-1-1 with 1x01, “Pilot,” the episode that introduced us to our beloved 118. We dive in on Abby Clark, who is very clearly being positioned as the emotional entry point of the show, Athena Grant’s immediate Angela Bassett-ness, Bobby Nash’s ominous little black book, and Buck Buckley’s straight hair, terrible judgment, and desperate need to be loved by literally anyone with a pulse.

This is the beginning of our re-rewatch journey through the emergencies, trauma, found family, baffling narrative choices, questionable timelines, emotional devastation, and extremely pretty first responders that make 9-1-1 so dangerously rewatchable.

In our first episode, we’re talking:

• Abby as the original emotional center of the show

• Buck stealing a firetruck for sex reasons

• Bobby Nash being deeply, obviously, alarmingly Not Okay

• Athena Grant arriving fully formed and already done with everyone

• Babies in walls, snakes in apartments, suburban break-ins, and 9-1-1’s early commitment to chaos

• Retcons, Ryan Murphy-isms, and our commitment to judging canon because we love it

It’s messy. It’s intense. It’s weirdly good. And unfortunately, we’re in it now.

Welcome to 9-1-1 on the Rocks. Let’s overthink television together.

xoxo,
Fandom on the Rocks

What happens when three people with strong opinions, an alarming number of notes, and absolutely no ability to watch television casually go back to the beginning of 9-1-1?

Welcome to 9-1-1 on the Rocks, a new podcast from Fandom on the Rocks.

We’re here for the big feelings, the baffling choices, the slow burns, the plot holes, and whatever other insane thing network television has decided to throw at us this week. This time, that means fires, floods, earthquakes, cruise ship disasters, improbable medical emergencies, complicated family dynamics, and one Los Angeles firehouse that has somehow become our entire personality.

We’re starting with Season 1 and recapping 9-1-1 episode by episode, going all the way back to the beginning — with full knowledge of where the show goes, what gets retconned, what gets better, what gets weirder, and what will eventually make us yell at our screens.

For anyone new to the wee-woo show, 9-1-1 follows the firefighters, paramedics, dispatchers, and one extremely badass sergeant responding to some of the strangest and most spectacular emergencies Los Angeles can produce. But beneath the collapsing buildings, occasional fires, runaway vehicles, and people getting stuck in places no human being should ever be stuck, this is a show about trauma, recovery, love, identity, caregiving, second chances, and the families people build for themselves.

It is also a show about incredibly attractive people who are catastrophically bad at boundaries.

Because this is a Fandom on the Rocks podcast, we won’t just be recapping what happens. We’ll be asking the important questions.

What does Season 1 look like when you already know which details will become foundational, which will quietly disappear, and which will be retconned nine years later?

When does the 118 stop being a group of coworkers and become a family — and did the show realize it was happening at the time?

Which character dynamics were carefully planned, which were created by accidental chemistry, and which exist because fandom looked at the text and understood the assignment?

How many devastating things can happen to Chimney before someone lets that man have a peaceful afternoon?

Why do the actual emergencies sometimes feel less alarming than the emotional subtext?

And how many times can the 118 run directly into fire, flood, earthquake, cruise ship disaster, or whatever else the show has planned for its next season-opening arc before someone makes them all sit down and have an honest conversation?

Our hosts also bring very different relationships with the show to the rewatch. Emily and Alison know what is coming, remember what gets forgotten, and have years of character analysis, fandom history, and ship feelings ready to go. Mandy watched Season 1 when it originally aired, left when Abby did, and has spent the years since absorbing the rest of the show through Tumblr, fandom osmosis, and whatever Emily and Alison have yelled about in her general direction.

Which means there will be predictions, forgotten plotlines, hindsight, spoilers, retcons, and at least one moment per episode where someone says, “Wait, is that actually what happened?”

If you know Fandom on the Rocks, you know the vibe: smart fandom chaos, character analysis, ship dynamics, television criticism, production choices, emotional damage, and the occasional realization that we care far too much about fictional people.

If you’re new here, welcome.

We’re skeptics first, critics second, and fans always.

There will be jokes. There will be feelings. There will be an alarming number of notes.

So grab your coffee, your group chat, and your trauma waiver. Let’s go back to the 118.

xoxo,
Fandom on the Rocks

This week on Glee on the Rocks, we cover 5x19, “Old Dog, New Tricks,” the Chris Colfer-written detour that somehow works because it’s old people, puppies, and just enough Rachel to keep the season’s chaos limping forward.

Rachel tries to rebrand her image after Broadway gossip exposes her Funny Girl mess by hiring Santana as a ruthless publicist and inventing an animal-rescue charity event called Broadway Bitches, complete with a disastrous pap walk that ends with her getting dragged down the street by dogs. Correct, honestly.

Meanwhile, Kurt, feeling left behind while everyone else gets careers, scandals, showcases, and/or strange rich lady mentorships, finds purpose at the Lexington Home for Retired Performers. He auditions for Peter Pan, gets pulled into Maggie’s story, and makes one very questionable attempt to reconcile her with her estranged daughter. Sounds about Kurt.

And then there’s Sam, Mercedes, and McConaughey the dog, which gives us one of the rarest Glee miracles of all: someone remembering Sam’s actual backstory.

Also happening in this episode:

⭐️ Rachel Berry attempting public image rehab while continuing to be Rachel Berry
👠 Santana Lopez as unpaid publicist, crisis manager, and professional hater with a cause
🎭 Kurt joining a retirement home production of Peter Pan and accidentally pitching us a spin-off we would absolutely watch
🐶 Sam adopting McConaughey without asking Mercedes, and the surprisingly adult conversation that follows

Did we love every song? Absolutely not. Did every plot point make sense? Please, this is still Glee. But did we enjoy watching this one more than expected? Somehow, yes.

xoxo,
FotR

We are once again asking the 9-1-1 writers’ room to be brave. Be bold. Be intentional.

In this Fandom on the Rocks bonus episode, we’re looking ahead to Season 10 of 9-1-1 and laying out our very reasonable, completely measured, not-at-all-unhinged wishlist for what we want from the next season.

Some of these wishes are mild-mannered expectations. Some are pipe dreams. Some are pure crack. All of them are delivered with love, frustration, and the deep spiritual exhaustion of two people who are, frankly, tired Grandpa.

An incomplete list (you have to listen to the episode for the full experience, obviously):

• Buddie canon, obviously — but as a choice, not a crisis. No more near-death experiences as romantic shortcuts. We want Buck and Eddie to choose each other because they have already built the life, the family, the trust, and the deeply suspicious platonic marriage.

• The bottle episode agenda — two couches, a kitchen table, the firehouse, and people actually talking to each other. CPR recertification? Station inspection? Power outage? We don’t care. Lock them in and let the character work happen.

• A wildfire that actually means something — Los Angeles is their home. Let the big disaster be about the community they serve, not just another round of “how can we almost kill the 118 this time?” Also, yes, burn down South Bedford and make Eddie move in with Buck. We said what we said.

• Group hang for joy — not a funeral, not a wedding, not a hospital, not a crisis. Give us a barbecue, a beach day, a game night, karaoke, softball, something. This show talks about found family all the time. Let us actually see the family.

• Emergency lightning round — influencer immersive experience gone wrong, wellness retreat horrors, science fair explosions, cruise ship dock chaos, revisiting elevator trauma with consequences, and a CPR training cold open where everyone roasts each other’s compression technique. Because silly emergencies are fun.

And, because we are us, we also discuss crop tops (obviously), drag brunch, Christopher needing an actual storyline, May and Ravi's developing romance, Maddie and Chimney in their leadership roles, Eddie Diaz as a queer-coded man written so loudly we are all begging the show to notice, and why Season 10 desperately needs one thing above all else: Intentionality.

Show us the storyboard. Show us the wall. Know where these characters are going when you start writing. Let big things mean something. Let the emotional arcs actually arc. We are paying adult money to watch this show. Give us the goods.

As always, we complain because we love this show. We want 9-1-1 to be the best version of itself, and we want Season 10 to remember that the show is strongest when the emergencies are wild, the characters are grounded, and the found family actually feels like a family.

Drop your Season 10 wishlist in the comments. What are you manifesting? What are you begging for? And how many crop tops is too many crop tops? Trick question. The limit does not exist.

xoxo,
Fandom on the Rocks

This week on Glee on the Rocks, Rachel Berry gets everything she’s ever wanted and immediately decides it’s not enough. In 5x18, “The Back-Up Plan,” Rachel risks her Funny Girl dream for a TV audition she is wildly unprepared for, Kurt and Blaine get pulled into the deeply weird orbit of rich socialite June Dolloway, and Mercedes and Santana quietly become the only people in New York making choices with even a shred of common sense.

This episode we break down:
🎭 Rachel Berry speedrunning career self-sabotage
💎 June Dolloway spotting Blaine and deciding to adopt him as her own personal show pony
🎶 Mercedes and Santana saving the episode with basement harmonies and actual friendship
📞 Sidney Greene delivering the only appropriate response to Rachel’s nonsense
⭐ And an honestly wild number of guest stars for an episode that seems to have misplaced half the cast

We talk chaotic Broadway logic, deeply questionable TV ambitions, unsettling Shirley MacLaine vibes, and Rachel once again fumbling a dream people would kill for. Thank Barbra Mercedes and Santana are here to provide the only functioning brain cells in New York.

xoxo,
FotR

This week on Glee, Rachel Berry finally makes it to Broadway — and naturally, everyone else is forced to treat it like the moon landing. In 5x17, “Opening Night,” Rachel spirals over bad buzz and opening-night nerves, Sue takes a deeply unnecessary field trip to New York, Kurt’s loft becomes a site of multiple crimes, and Will Schuester pops in just long enough to cry and leave. It’s Rachel’s big moment, and Glee makes sure absolutely no one gets out alive.

This episode we break down:
🎭 Rachel Berry’s opening-night ego spiral
📰 One bad preview and suddenly it’s DEFCON 1
🗽 Sue Sylvester’s cursed New York adventure

Is the episode a little self-indulgent? Of course. Is it also one of season 5’s more entertaining messes? Honestly, yes.

We wouldn't want Glee any other way.

xoxo,
FotR