Station 19 Season 3 Review

Major Spoilers are included in this season review. Please read with caution.

A spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy, Station 19 follows a group of heroic firefighters of the Seattle Fire Department at Station 19 in both their personal and professional lives. While the series sounded good on paper, there were a few issues with the series when it came down to marketing purposes.

Since this series is a Grey’s Anatomy spin-off, the channel opted to switch timeslots—with Station 19 getting the 8pm slot and Grey’s following at 9pm—for those who tuned in weekly to force the spin-off down the fans’ throats essentially. It was also to promote the crossovers that happened between episodes, but that also added to the whole “forced to watch” rather than “encouraged to”. However, I did find certain aspects of the firefighter show entertaining and the characters weren’t too bad either once season 3 kicked off.

First off, the love triangle between main female protagonist Andy, Jack, and Ryan died immediately when Ryan was killed off. When they killed Ryan off early on during season 3, all my fan theories on where he would go died with him. For the past two seasons, Ryan felt directionless without the love triangle drama—as his personal story with his father in season 2 fell short in addition to a lack of a real life outside wherever the plot tells him to go. So, killing him off was playing to the “fridge” trope because Andy had something to be sad and angry about for most of the season.

The death also caused Captain Robert Sullivan—Andy’s third and most current love interest—to appoint Maya—Andy’s best friend—over Andy as the new Captain of Station 19, which didn’t bode well for anyone on the team. Andy and Maya’s friendship became incredibly strained for most of the season as a result. Speaking of Maya, I did enjoy her story this season as she struggled to earn her place as the Captain in addition to dealing with her past.

Maya’s flashback story this season about her dad pushing her to be the best—and not being able to accept it was also abuse—was heartbreaking. If she won a medal, she was rewarded with love and encouragement. If she failed even a little, the dad would ignore her at dinner and throw a plate at the wall as punishment. The portrayal of how a trauma bond worked—reward and punishment—was portrayed poignantly and realistically through that flashback story, especially when Maya broke up with her girlfriend Carina due to her denial of the abusive situation.

The trauma bond was pretty strong between Maya and her dad—until her mom divorced him in present day. Then the visiting dad yanked on Maya’s ponytail—in public while she was working as Captain of Station 19 to control a fire—to get her attention during the season 3 finale. When Maya cut off her hair in response—freeing her from the trauma bond in the process—it was a pretty powerful moment.

The other characters had great flashback stories too—all connected to the late Captain Pruitt Herrera, father of Andy—throughout season 3, but some of them were inserted awkwardly into the episodes that made the pacing feel off. Pruitt Herrera died heroically near the end of the season, which sparked a political battle at the fire stations.

I mentioned this in my Grey’s Anatomy Season 16 Review, but the crossover episodes were pretty wonky without the needed context. For example, the Jackson and Vic romance appeared awkward without watching Season 16 Grey’s and Season 3 Station 19 side-by-side. Also, episodes that connected the two series—crossover events—are left on unresolved cliffhangers if you don’t watch the episode that directly followed it.

Overall, Station 19 is an amazing show that I grew to love on my own, but I will be the first to acknowledge that the marketing pushed this spin-off too hard on Grey’s fans. Hopefully—which I doubt since the latest commercials are still advertising crossover events for their upcoming seasons—Station 19 and Grey’s Anatomy will be less connected moving forward.

Thanks for reading this season review, everyone! I will not be doing weekly episode reviews for Grey’s Anatomy or Station 19 this time around, but I will have season reviews ready when they resolve in 2021. Have a great time watching these awesome shows, and I’ll see y’all in 2021.