Series / Station 19

"Every life saved, every fire put out, I do this job because I love it."

— Andy Herrera

The second complete spin-off of Grey's Anatomy, this time focusing on Seattle's best and unluckiest firefighters instead of doctors. It features a diverse cast of characters, perhaps moreso than Grey's and Private Practice because it was made over ten years later. The showrunners have said that their main cast will comprise people of many backgrounds and sexualities.

Ben Warren, in his latest change of career, has decided to become a firefighter after experiencing the adrenaline rush of a fire breaking out at Grey Sloan Memorial hospital, where he was a surgical resident. He quit his job without telling his wife, the no-nonsense Chief of Surgery. During his rookie experience being on watch at Station 19, he and mentor Andrea "Andy" Herrera attend to a pair of brothers in a house fire and rush them to Grey Sloan, their friends 3 blocks down midtown Seattle. Herrera strikes up a quick friendship with Meredith Grey while charming the staff and taking no nonsense, either. The danger of Seattle medicine mixes with literal fire, and the already danger-prone Ben Warren is up for some challenges. Herrera's father is the Old Retainer of the station, and it's filled with close companions who soon challenge the new guy.

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This show provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents:
  • Maya's father is verbally and emotionally abusive to both his children, at one point throwing a bowl of food across the dining room and refusing to acknowledge Maya when she came in second at a track meet. In another incident she was forced to walk 20 mile home simply because she won the meet but failed to beat her own record.
  • He tops himself when he confronts her at an emergency, accusing her of "playing captain" over her family. When she turns on him, he actually grabs her by her hair in full view of cops and firefighters to berate her. This pushes Maya to finally stand up to her dad on his horrible treatment of her.
  • Gibson has implied more than once that he was abused in his various foster homes growing up.
• Accidental Adultery: Gibson had no idea Eva Vasquez was married to a fellow firefighter at least the first time.
• Action Girl: Andy is the real hero of the show, and she embodies the trope more than most action-by-profession females by being pretty ruthless. Maya and Victoria fit this trope as well.
• Altar the Speed: Sullivan and Andy get married very quickly after beginning a relationship, the justification being her father's rapidly progressing cancer.
• Am I Just a Toy to You?: Andy and Gibson in the first season. He's ready to propose and she is most definitely not that serious.
• Amicable Exes: Toyed with in "Nothing Seems the Same." A flashback reveals Sullivan asked for 90 days away from Andy so he can focus on his sobriety. Andy agreed.
• Anti-Nepotism: Andy is more than qualified to be a fire lieutenant and has had exactly the same training and background as Jack, who was promoted to the role months prior. In the first episode, she is pushed to question why she hasn't got the promotion herself and the Chief, who is her father, explains that he was deliberately holding her back for several reasons, one being that he doesn't know if he has a bias with her or which way it would sway.
• Anyone Can Die: Pruitt Herrera and Dean Miller.
• Artistic License: Like its parent series, Grey's Anatomy, this is a drama first and foremost, so the number of times the need for dramatic effect overrides the need for realism is, well... almost always!
  • Artistic License – Law: Rules are often treated as bureaucratic nuisances that prevent lives from being saved in order to avoid lawsuits in the event of a tragedy. Station 19 personnel often perform acts that might be considered heroic, but in real life, and only in the lucky event that they are able to save lives without anyone dying or being injured, would still result in disciplinary board reviews and, at best, dismissal. In one of the first episodes, this trope is averted when the SFD Chief Lucas Ripley reprimands one of the main characters, Lt. Andy Herrera, and urges her to accept that the rules are guidelines designed to protect the lives of both firefighters and civilians, and that if she wants to work for the SFD, especially with a command position, she needs to put aside her Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! ways and learn to follow rules that may sometimes require doing ethically gray things, but must still be followed in the name of safety. Too bad Andy never really shows that she learned anything from Lucas' words in the next few seasons.
  • Artistic License – Physics: As an actual firefighter put it, keeping civilians trapped above a fire is a horrible decision, as the heat and smoke will travel upwards, directly into them.
• Backdoor Pilot: Grey's Anatomy season 14 episode 13 "You Really Got A Hold On Me".
• Bald of Authority: Sullivan definitely fits this trope, brought in as Captain of the house in Season 2 and promoted to Battalion Chief in Season Three.
• Benevolent Boss: Captain Herrera and Department Chief Ripley were both considered excellent bosses by their subordinates. As is Battalion Chief Sullivan after he thawed out a bit. Current Department Chief Dixon not so much...
• Big Storm Episode:
  • Season Two has a windstorm that throws the aid car over the side of the road, with Andy, Sullivan and a patient onboard.
  • A blizzard traps the team in the station for the duration of the shift during Season Three
• Bilingual Backfire: Andy discovers the hard way that the disliked Captain Sullivan speaks Spanish
• Born During a Storm: Dean's daughter is born in the firehouse during a blizzard. However this is treated as rather routine since the team is made up of paramedics, Maya is able to consult with a Grey-Sloan OBGYN and the birth itself is straightforward. Mom JJ however is *ticked* that she can't have an epidural
• Bottle Episode: almost all of episode 3x06 takes place within the firehouse. Due to a blizzard striking Seattle the team can't go out on calls. Instead the firehouse serves as a makeshift community shelter and several emergencies end up coming to them, including the above Born During a Storm example.
• Broken Pedestal: This is at least part of the reason Dean is so angry at Sullivan in "Don't Look Back in Anger." Dean remembers Sullivan from the academy, "preaching about integrity" and pushing Dean to be better.
• Call-Back: Travis is chewing out Ben for getting all medical instead of just calling an ambulance, saying that they can't treat a brain bleed in the field and that what Ben does in an OR and in the rig are very different things... except he's talking to Ben Warren, master of the accidentally-operating-on-patients-literally-everywhere-with-literally-anything.
  • Andy mentions being afraid of raccoons in a letter from her younger self in Season Two. In Season Three she is seen screaming and jumping onto a picnic table during a call when a raccoon comes wandering by.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Ryan Tanner does this with his mostly absent conman father Greg when he pops back into his son's life in Season Two.
• Camping Episode: Newly promoted Captain Bishop takes the team camping as a bonding exercise, only to end up treating the victim of a bear attack.
• Car Meets House: Or bar, in this case. Season 3 opens with a car crashing into Joe's bar with several team members plus Grey-Sloan doctors inside the building. Absolutely Played for Drama.
• Catapult Nightmare: Andy, after Pruitt's death.
• Character Death: For only three seasons a surprising amount Chief Ripley, Ryan Tanner, Rigo Vasquez and Pruitt Herrara
• Children Are a Waste: Maya, to an extent. When a baby is safe dropped at the station she spends most of the shift actively avoiding 'getting stuck on baby duty.'
• Crossover: Between several character's connections to the parent show, the shared setting, and the fact that all the firefighters have to be medically trained to at least EMT status means the show fully embraces the crossover capability between the two worlds, with every season having multiple crossovers with Grey's. For comparison, Private Practice only crossed over with the parents show three times in it's six seasons. Station 19 has had seven crossovers, one of them a three-episode event between the shows, and this isn't counting the characters popping in for a cameo or brief arc on each other's shows - it got to the point in Season three that nearly episode has included at least one character from Grey's.
• Crowd Panic: The skyscraper fire in Season One turns into this with one poor woman trampled to death by her coworkers as they flee down the stairs.
• Cry into Chest: Andy does this several times to Sullivan after her father dies
• Daddy's Girl: Very much Andy. After her mother died she spent as much time as possible at the firehouse and eventually became a firefighter on her father's team.
• Destination Defenestration: Trapped in a burning apartment block with the captain unresponsive and the inevitable fire blocking with all possible exit routes the team get inflatable mats positioned below the fifth-floor windows and then majestically leap out to safety.
• Didn't Think This Through: Maya's blackmail attempt to get her job back was to simply tell people that she saw Ross and Sullivan at dinner and thus in a relationship. The problem is that everyone knows the two are old friends, so them having one dinner is no proof of an affair. That means Ross can just tell Beckett so he can give Maya a harder time. He then tells Carina, who's majorly pissed her wife did this and lied to her about it, leaving Maya worse off than before. She openly admits, "I didn't say it was a good plan."
• Disappeared Dad: as of Season Three Pruitt Herrara, having sacrificed himself in a fire to save Andy and the team.
• Domestic Abuse: Gibson and Miller respond to a call of a gas leak, which turns out to be a young boy trying to stop his stepfather from hitting his mother.
• Doorstop Baby: At least two babies have been safe-dropped at the station.
• Dream Episode: 3x13 has elements of this. Having not slept for 3 days after her father's death Ben finally gave Andy something that prompted some Mushroom Samba like dreams for her.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: While not an actual Drill Sergeant, Maya's father shows shades of this in both his coaching and parenting styles as she grew up. Maya won Olympic gold while her artistic brother is now homeless.
• Drugs Are Bad: Sullivan gets addicted to painkillers in season 3. In Season 4's "We Are Family," Ben says the problem with opioid addiction is really Inherent in the System and Society Is to Blame.
• Easily Forgiven: This seems to be the case with Sullivan in "We Are Family" season 4 regarding his stealing Fentanyl and overdosing in season 3. After most of the team speaks on his behalf, he is rehired at Station 19 as a probie. "Don't Look Back in Anger" shows Dean is the one holdout, and he believes Sullivan made things harder for other Black firefighters.
• Education Mama: Dean's mother to a ridiculous degree.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: To Dixon, the only reason Travis aided a woman in a car wreck in a tornado rather than wait for help was to look like a hero for the media and "we're more alike than you think." That Travis acted on instinct to save a life rather than care for his political career doesn't enter his mind.
• Flashback Echo: Sullivan experiences these while helping a car wreck victim. His wife died the same way, on the same stretch of road several years earlier.
• Firemen Are Hot: It's from the world of Grey's Anatomy, everyone is beautiful.
• Foster Kid: Not only did Jack Gibson grow up in the system, he and Ben are shown providing treatment to a family of foster children in a homeless camp. One of the kids ends up living with Ben and his wife.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Andy and Sullivan get married not long after they start dating, saying they'd been love for a long time even though the dating part was new.
• Friends with Benefits: Andy and Ryan did this on and off throughout the first two seasons.
• Hate Sink: Lane Bishop is Maya's overbearing father who took immense pride in her track victories, but became extremely despondent and verbally abusive every time she finished second (particularly in one race when her girlfriend is injured). He does offhand things such as withholding love and attention, indirectly saying she’s “a loser” and ultimately being the catalyst that instills both Maya’s rigid refusal to give up as well as her cold willingness to do what she had to to advance above all others. Lane is proven to be just as emotionally abusive towards his wife and son too and in the Season 3 finale, he berates and criticizes Maya while she’s trying to deal with a bomb threat on scene and even gets physical when he pulls her ponytail too, finally waking her up to the truth about how he’s always victimized her. Then the ending of Season 4 shows that he doesn't come to her wedding, but her mother—who's broken away from him—does.
• Heroic Fire Rescue: Obviously in the show, but also some of the motivation to make it was on Grey's Anatomy with the fire at Grey Sloan where Ben helped save people. It provoked him to want to do something more exciting than surgery (which the other surgeons scoffed at).
• Heroic Sacrifice: Pruitt's death. He vented an unstable roof to save his daughter and the rest of team, falling to his death in the flaming building.
• Honorable Marriage Proposal: Dean offers to marry his friends-with-benefits when she shows up about-to-pop pregnant
• Honorary Uncle:
  • Andy has several amongst her father's former firefighter colleagues
  • The team is shaping up to be this for Dean's daughter Pru as well, particularly Hughes and Gibson
• I Can't Feel My Legs!: Sullivan sustains a spinal injury when the aid car goes off a cliff during the windstorm.
• I Have No Son!: Dean is disowned and cut off by his wealthy parents when his daughter is born out of wedlock.
• I Reject Your Reality: Among Dixon's problems with Travis is "my son wasn't gay until you made him that way." He completely ignores Emmett trying to tell him he was gay long before he met Travis.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy: Hughes is on her way home from work and ends up delivering a baby to a mom trapped in a wrecked car.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Dean is vicious to Sullivan in "Don't Look Back in Anger," saying how Sullivan's actions in the third season reflected poorly on every Black firefighter. A frustrated Sullivan tells Andy that everything Dean says is right.
• Last Words: Pruitt tells Maya to pass his to Andy before falling to his death.
• Liar Revealed: As Season 6 begins, the gang have heard from Jack on how he took a six month leave for personal stuff and is in Kansas City. When a tornado hits the neighborhood, they discover Jack has been in Seattle for the last three months, shacking up with an old girlfriend. Andy tries to help him, going to Beckett to tell him Jack is trying to get back in shape to return when his leave is done...and Beckett reveals Jack never even asked for any leave, he just took off with no warning to anyone. To the team, the fact Jack has been lying to them all this time is worse than his breakdown.
• Like Brother and Sister: Andy and Warren have this type of trusting dynamic.
• Missing Mom:
  • Andy's mother left when she was 9. She grew up believing that her mother had died and only learned the truth after her father died.
  • Pru (Dean's daughter) had her mother walk out when she was few days old.
• Nepotism: Probie Emmett Dixon has been assigned to 19 by his father, the brand new Seattle Fire Chief Dixon. Dixon Sr. makes it clear that he expects his son to be favored and protected by the team.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Pruitt was a civilian when he died and as such doesn't qualify for a line-of-duty funeral, leaving the team to seek donations to pay for it. In addition, Maya faces an inquiry into Pruitt's death as the department is Not Happy a civilian not only entered an active scene, but died in the process.
• Out of the Inferno: The show posters feature Andy walking out of flames.
• Papa Wolf: Pruitt to Andy for sure.
• Parental Favoritism: Maya was on the receiving end of this her whole life, to the deep detriment of her now homeless brother.
• Parental Abandonment: Jack Gibson was raised in the foster system and never knew his biological parents.
  • Elena Herrera, Andy's mom left when she was nine, leaving Pruitt to tell Andy that she was dead.
• Parental Neglect: Hughes's parents owned a restaurant and worked very long hours as she grew up. Even now as an adult she has to travel to see them, as they can't/won't take time off to travel to her.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: Andy isn't happy when she stops by her father's home to find him clearly 'morning after' with his lady friend. The rest of the team thinks it's hilarious.
• Passed-Over Promotion: Andy is Not Happy when she's passed up for the Captain's slot in favor of Maya. Made worse by the fact that this happened because Pruitt (her father!) told Sullivan to pass her over since she was still grieving for Ryan
• Promotion to Parent: After their parents died, Chief Ripley stepped up to raise his younger sister.
• Really Gets Around: Maya shows shades of this in the first season with regular one-night stands that she considers part of her self-care routine.
• Reckless Gun Usage: The unfortunate cause of Ryan Tanner's death. A mom left her weapon unsecured. Her young son managed to get ahold of of it and shot.
• Relocating the Explosion: The firefighters are attempting to evacuate a hospital that has already suffered a series of explosions when they encounter another bomb in a lab—just as structural damage collapses the exit. One of the doctors has the idea to contain the bomb in the lab's autoclave, which has airtight seals for the sterilization of medical equipment. The bomb is on a timer but will also go off if it's jostled too much, so Gibson has to slowly—but not too slowly—walk it across the room to the autoclave, then sprint to shelter with the others before it goes off.
• Roadside Surgery: Ben is forced to amputate man's hand to free him from lawn tractor while a wildfire approaches. He later develops the Physician Response Team vehicle, bringing a full-on OR to trauma scenes for critical patients.
  • Andy has to perform a fasciotomy on a patient in the back of the Aid Car when the windstorm makes getting to the hospital impossible.
• Screaming Birth: of the three babies delivered on screen (so far) all three moms were yelling their heads off.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: In "Nothing Seems the Same," Sullivan is working at a private fire department called Mavis. During a brushfire, Sullivan is stuck helping out at a mansion. Sullivan takes the truck, leaves his co-worker, and goes to help Station 19 fight the brushfire. His co-worker promptly fires him when he returns with the truck.
• Secret Relationship: This show runs on this trope. Andy and Gibson, Maya and Gibson, Hughes and (department Chief!)Ripley, Andy and Sullivan....
• Sink or Swim Fatherhood: Dean has very little time to adjust between a pregnant JJ knocking on his door to when she takes off days after their daughter's birth.
• Soul-Crushing Desk Job: What Maya is threatened with by Chief Dixon if she doesn't toe the line over Pruitt's death.
• Staging an Intervention: Pruitt organizes an intervention for Gibson, urging him to get help for his PTSD following the skyscraper fire.
• Status Quo Is God: Under no circumstances is Andy at this time able to become Captain of 19 be it interim, promotion from predecessor or her father's name. The show makes it abundantly clear that per her arc, she's gotta earn it. By the end of Season 6 though, she got it.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Pruitt was a civilian when he died and as such doesn't qualify for a line-of-duty funeral, leaving the team to seek donations to pay for it.
  • In addition Maya faces an inquiry into Pruitt's death as the department is Not Happy a civilian not only entered an active scene, but died in the process.
  • Sullivan's actions while addicted to painkillers in season 3 led to a disciplinary hearing in season 4's "We Are Family." He is busted back down to probie.
• Teen Pregnancy: in one of the first episodes, a callout to a fire alarm at a middle school turn out to be Ben's son Tuck trying to summon help for a classmate in labor.
• Time Skip: There is a three week jump between the end of season 3 and the start of season 4. Some flashbacks reveal what happened in that time regarding Andy, her still-alive mother, and Sullivan before the Covid-19 pandemic takes up everyone's attention.
• Too Dumb to Live: At a political event, Dixon brushes off reports of a tornado hitting Seattle, going, "it's just a little wind" despite alarms going off. He's even ready to walk into it, only for his wife to want to stay. Cue the tornado hitting with huge damage, including dropping a car with a woman from a mile away with Travis helping the injured passenger. Dixon's reaction to this? Accusing Travis of acting like a hero just to play up to voters and the cameras and "we're more alike than you think."
• The Un-Favorite:
  • Maya's brother was rejected by their father due to his artistic dreams and is now homeless.
  • Dean is this to his parents. It started when he quit working for their company to become a firefighter and became permanent after his daughter was born out of wedlock.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: After her promotion to Captain, Maya proves to be a terrible boss to her team, treating them like children and has them ready to mutiny within a week.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Dean gives a rather vicious one to Sullivan in "Don't Look Back in Anger."
  Dean: You don't give two craps about making it harder for every other black firefighter.
  Sullivan: Don’t assume that what I did doesn’t mean I don’t give a crap about it. Don’t you think I’m sorry? You don’t think I know what I did?
  Dean: No, I think you knew exactly what you did. You just did it anyway.
  Sullivan: I stole drugs because I’m an addict, Miller. You have no idea what it feels like to need a drug. You don't know my pain.
  Dean: Everybody here knows the pain of the job. Only one person stole drugs and lied about it. I'm not patting you on the back. I remember you at the academy, all high and mighty, constantly preaching about integrity. You pushed me to be better, and now you’re just a lying, drug-stealing thief with a free pass to do it again.
• Three-Month-Old Newborn: Dean's daughter Pru is much larger than a real newborn.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: How the team perceives the arrival of Captain Sullivan at the beginning of Season Two. And Fire Chief Dixon in Season Three.
• Spin-Off
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • There have been several firefighter characters in Seattle, at least four named ones, none of whom apparently work at the nearby station.
  • Andy's narration completely disappears come Season 3.
• Who Will Take The Kids?: Dean spends a full episode trying to figure out guardianship for his daughter Pru as he doesn't want her raised by his parents should the worst happen.
• You're Not My Father: An angry, grieving Tuck says "I'm not your son" to Ben (his stepfather) in "Out of Control." Ben is hurt by this for the rest of the episode. The episode makes it clear Tuck, Sr. is an important part of Tuck's life, even if the audience does not see him.

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