“Little Girl Blue” pulls at the heartstrings from its very first second. In a montage over moving music, we watch Victoria in the hospital recovering from a heart attack, and everyone — and we mean everyone from the station — is coming in and out to visit her. When she’s finally home, so much time has passed that it feels like it could be any day of the week, or year for that matter. That is, until Travis walks into her bedroom, and we learn that it’s Thanksgiving.
The sixth episode of Station 19’s fifth season, written by Tyrone Finch and Meghann Plunkett, is a special one. We get to watch Thanksgiving Day unfold at the station in its entirety. Dinner is served, and so is the drama.
“Blocking multiple scenes where two station houses were preparing Thanksgiving meals was a feat,” the episode’s director, Diana C. Valentine, reflects. Victoria is peeling potatoes in one scene, and Andy is working on basting a turkey in the next. “I had entire spreadsheets for the prop department that specified which actor was preparing what food in each scene and at what time so the actors had something real to do.”
The episode packs a lot into 42 minutes — similar to the hecticness of the actual holiday. There’s an oven on fire. There’s the question of who has custody of Dean Miller’s adorable daughter Pru. There are two of the same pie made unknowingly by both Miranda Bailey and the objectively good-looking woman whom her husband, Ben Warren, invited to dinner at the station. And how could we forget Travis’ dad, after a secret affair, coming out in front of the entire station — including his wife?
“It’s very human,” production designer Mayling Cheng says of the episode. “We’re dealing with all kinds of humans, our personalities, our worries.” Much of it revolves around the titular “Little Girl Blue,” of course. “Janai Kaylani, who played Pru,” Valentine says, “was amazing! I have never worked with a child, especially one so young, who was focused and present in the scenes the way Janai was.” And speaking of kids, can you believe it was in this episode that Maya and Carina decided they wanted to start a family, thanks to Pru?
It all culminates in a Thanksgiving dinner at the station — post casual electrocution and heart attack, of course. And you’re invited as we break it all down.
The legendary family gripe in the garage
As with any real kooky holiday dinner, the firefighters’ family members showed up to join in on the action. “This was the episode in which my character, Paul Montgomery,” actor Robert Curtis Brown says, “finally came out to his wife, [and] in the most awkward way. It was a very charged scene!”
What made this scene so complex and creatively challenging to shoot was that it took place not during dinner, but while they were setting up for dinner. “I felt this was one of my trickiest scenes,” Valentine remembers. “[They] are always moving, even when they have important things to say to each other. So, to keep the actors moving, yet have them connected to each other for such an important moment, took some blocking forethought. Robert [Curtis Brown] and Jay [Hayden] did an incredible job.”
Jayson Crothers, the episode’s cinematographer, says it’s the scene he’s proudest of. “We essentially surrounded the scene with three cameras and set them up in a way that we were able to keep shooting the scene from start to finish without ever having to interrupt the cast so they could all stay in the moment and play off of each other and let things develop organically from take to take,” he says.
The actors are moving back and forth around the room opening folding tables, moving chairs, and putting down place settings, with the conversation getting progressively more emotional as Paul is getting grilled by his son Travis while everyone else stands around watching.
“I always want to create a space where actors can inhabit their characters and be in the scene without having to give much attention to the mechanics and technical aspects,” Crothers continues. Even the lighting was broader than usual so the actors could move more freely around the space — and it shows. “I was really proud of the crew for how they pulled off this scene.”
Learning to live with loss
This episode pays wonderful homage to people who work during the holidays — and also to people who are grieving during the holidays. It was in this episode that the firefighters were dealing with the passing of their beloved friend Dean Miller. “That study [of] the five stages,” Ben says in the episode, “it’s crap. It’s utter nonsense. It was about terminally ill patients coming to terms with their own death. A person accepting the end of their own life is totally different than accepting losing someone you love.”Actress Tracie Thoms stepped in once again as the station’s psychologist turned trauma specialist Dr. Diane Lewis, who had some helpful psychology-based advice for Victoria. “What I had to say was very technical. It was hard to get it right, [but] I needed to get it right because it was so important,” she says. It was also a memorable episode for Thoms because she got to wear civilian clothes — and she was ecstatic about it. “I still have that blazer! I begged them for it!”
Valentine recalls shooting the scene vividly. “Barrett [Doss] was so good, and adding Tracie’s Dr. Lewis to the mix to help Victoria work through her guilt for something she had no control over — something I think people can relate to — made for a great moment. I blocked the scene at the bottom of the stairs to be able to have Dean Miller’s photo in the background so it felt like he was in there too.”
Dr. Lewis and Victoria’s conversation was an extremely touching one. “What this episode says about grief and acceptance is so important,” Thoms says, “and forgiving yourself and trusting the grieving process.” Their talk prompted important life reflections, like what the psychological immune system is protecting each of us from. It also prompted more pressing questions, like would you pay $150 for an organic heritage turkey, like Travis did? Speaking of that turkey …
A sprinkler mishap on the set
The people in the station are struggling, but so is the poor station itself. When a giant fire materializes in the station’s oven as the turkey roasts, chaos erupts. “I just destroyed an oven that cost more than my car,” Travis says in the episode.
“Scenes like the fire in the oven and the sprinklers going off,” Crothers reflects, “are both enormously fun and a little tense. Setting things up takes extra time, and you know you only really get one shot at it. We only had one stove that Jay Hayden could pry open and damage, and then there was all of that water.”
A giant kitchen fire meant that the sprinklers in the station would finally have their moment. There is a shot where the camera actually shows the fire sprinkler on the ceiling — which was unique to this specific episode. As such, Cheng and her team got to work. “It’s [a] fake sprinkler,” Cheng says. “It’s just an attachment. [So] we had to make sure to add a ceiling. Normally, our set is 10 feet, so I don’t put a ceiling up unless we need it.”
Everything seemed under control — until there was a surprise when the cameras started rolling. “I didn’t realize the sprinkler was going [to go] on, so I didn’t protect the floor,” Cheng says. “I remember we had to tiptoe so we didn’t slip.” Luckily, she can laugh about it now. “Special effects brought in those rubber mats. We put rubber mats all over the floor. When we saw the floor [in any shot], we removed the rubber mats. Otherwise, we put rubber mats in the whole place.”
The special effects team worked with construction on how and when the smoke would flow out of the oven and the fire sprinklers would be activated. “The setup and rigging to have the smoke billow from the oven and the sprinklers go off worked great,” Valentine reflects. “I remember watching the scene while we were filming and having to hold my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Grey [Damon] and Jay [Hayden] were so funny and so on board with getting soaked from the sprinklers!” Hot. And we’re not just talking about the oven.
The floor work turned out pretty well too. “The slip and fall on the wet kitchen floor by Captain Beckett [Josh Randall] turned out so well,” Valentine says, “that it [still] makes me gasp every time I see it.” And using the jaws of life on an oven? “Chef’s kiss!” Thoms says.
Realizing the rooftop
The station members weren’t the only ones dealing with loss in this episode. When the widowed shop owner, Ingrid, played by Lindsey Gort, is invited to join the crew for dinner at the station, she gets the wrong idea about Ben’s intentions. He later finds her standing on the ledge at the top of the station, contemplating her loneliness, where he eventually talks her down.
As the production designer, Mayling Cheng regularly read through each script ahead of filming and figured out whether certain set pieces needed to be adjusted — or constructed entirely. The roof was nonexistent, so a new challenge arose.
“I built that set,” Cheng says. Not knowing where the actress would stand or what shoes she would wear, Cheng built the ledge for the episode with a larger width for extra room. “Originally, I had greenery all around the edge,” Cheng adds. “I took all the trees out so we could see her.”
The season with a reason
Shooting a TV show is often done in small sections, which means that the whole ensemble are rarely working in one scene together. But this episode was different because they all had the rare chance to be together in the same room at once for Thanksgiving dinner. “The entire cast of Station 19 sat at a very long table,” Brown says.
“The montage sequence where everyone is talking, laughing, and connecting isn’t really acting,” Crothers reminisces. “The whole cast was such a tight-knit group of people who were friends that genuinely loved and cared about one another. So, as we moved around the table shooting various interactions, that was really just the cast talking and laughing and enjoying each other’s company. It was really special for me to see fictional characters and relationships being portrayed so authentically because the people and relationships between them were authentic.”
This episode was an infrequent opportunity for everyone in the cast to get together all at once — which, much like gathering in one place for actual family holidays, is not always easy. And they took full advantage, on camera and off. “It was a chance to give thanks as an actor for the opportunity to be a part of a beloved show, but also give thanks for the beautiful, diverse world we live in,” Brown says. “Actors work long hours, and through the intensity of emotional scenes, they become close. They become a family. This episode got me real teary-eyed. Not because the pumpkin pie wasn’t as good as mine, but because I was flooded with gratitude for the closeness, the sharing, the fellowship, and the community.”
