The second part of Station 19’s series finale gave a fitting sendoff for the Seattle firefighters and their families alike, concluding their stories and offering a peek into their immediate and distant future. Station 19 season 7, episode 10 showed the crew fighting for their survival and the protection of Seattle, dividing their time between battling one of the biggest disasters they ever had to face and the visions of a possible future that motivated the team enough to push through. Concentrating the attention on the wildfire thus brought the drama and Station 19’s protagonists’ character development to the forefront.
Besides the tense occurrences that put various characters in danger, making their survival uncertain until the very end, Station 19’s series finale also firmly concluded stories hinted at throughout season 7. By focusing less on characters whose stories’ endings were already thoroughly fleshed out in Station 19 season 7, the series finale managed to deliver partially unexpected conclusions to some characters’ stories, including Ben Warren’s decision to leave Station 19 to return to Grey Sloan. By focusing on its protagonists just as much as on the firehouse’s legacy, Station 19 season 7’s finale kept the firefighting drama’s core themes intact.
What The Firefighters’ Visions In The Station 19 Series Finale Mean
The Visions Were The Future They Needed To Imagine To Survive
All central characters experienced visions in critical moments of the Station 19 season 7 finale, whether their health was at risk like in Theo’s case when at Grey Sloan Memorial or they had gone through a near-death experience when Travis and Dominic narrowly avoided the fire tornado. The visions could easily be mistaken for a window into Station 19’s characters’ future. However, based on the moments such visions presented themselves, they had more to do with the reasons the Station 19 protagonists had to remind themselves of to push through past the momentary challenge that seemed insurmountable at the time.
Andy’s speech at the episode’s beginning perfectly framed the visions’ meaning when she asked Maya to focus on what waited for her after her arduous situation. Each vision followed a situation the Station 19 characters feared they wouldn’t have survived, and it started with characters’ close-ups that hinted at the intimate nature of what they were conjuring, intently focusing on their reasons for which to live. Whether likelier, like Maya’s family vision confirming her Station 19 season 7’s happy ending, or more far-fetched, like Andy ending up with Jack, it was what they needed to see to focus on survival.
How Andy’s Lead Saved Maya From The Wildfire
The Waterdrop Physically Saved Maya But Andy’s Words Got Her Through
Maya finding herself cut off from the rest of her team by the raging wildfire convinced her she was about to meet her end, and her persistently calling out to Andy and admitting that showed the dark place where her mind went. While the waterdrop physically saved Maya moments after, it was Andy’s suggestion to “concentrate on everything you have waiting for you when you get out of there, all you have to live for” that forced Maya to focus on what was in front of her and her hopes and dreams.
Andy’s words’ inspired Maya not to despair, letting her see what lay ahead of her after the insurmountable challenge of the wildfire, effectively reminding Maya of her reasons for which to survive that threat.
The moment right after the waterdrop clarified just how helpful Andy had been to Maya as Station 19’s leader. Andy even offered Maya to sit that call out, but she refused because Andy’s words moved Maya’s focus away from her worries and to the matter at hand, resulting in her improved concentration that made her an indispensable asset in their last stand against the wildfire’s potential spread toward Seattle and the recovery of the patient with the whistle.
What Okieriete Onaodowan’s Station 19 Finale Cameo Meant For Vic’s Vision
Dean Returning In Vic’s Vision Confirms She’s Right To Follow Her Crisis One Path
Onaodowan’s return as Dean Miller in Vic’s vision was especially meaningful in Station 19 season 7, episode 10 because what helped Vic push through a burning log breaching her containment was the certainty championing Crisis One was the right path for her. Leaving Station 19 was always going to be challenging, but seeing through Dean’s vision for Crisis One made Vic’s decision to turn it into a national initiative more important than just making an essential program available for all in the country.
Station 19 season 5 established Crisis One as Dean’s program to train SFD to offer help and de-escalate situations that before then would only be dealt with by the police, harming more than helping. However, after his unexpected death, Crisis One effectively became Dean’s legacy. Seeing a potential future where Vic could export the good Crisis One did within the SFD in Seattle to everywhere in the country, making Dean proud of her, meant that her choice to move to DC was the right one because it did some good and made Dean’s legacy even more impactful.
Why Travis Left Station 19 & Followed Vic To DC
Travis’s Choice Might Seem Like Running Away But He Actually Embraced Change
Throughout Station 19, Travis had a tendency to run away when threatened by change. All his romantic relationships after Michael’s death had failed, whether because Travis wasn’t as ready for the next steps as his partners or because he chose emotionally unavailable people. Travis even managed to blow up his relationship with Eli in Station 19 season 7, which was good on paper, because he repeatedly cheated on him with Emmett, despite not having respect for his father for years after he cheated on Travis’s mother.
Travis moving across the country with Vic effectively challenged his fear of change, proving the thing that could finally make him overcome his limbo, after he used the excuse of Station 19 as being his life as a convenient comfort blanket that made it possible for him to avoid change. Despite the distance, Travis’s move could even make his relationship with Dominic work precisely because it finally forced Travis to handle change, making it easier for him to embark on a relationship with the intent of making it work no matter the challenges ahead.
Ben’s Return To Grey Sloan Brings Station 19 Full Circle
Ben Needed His Years As A Firefighter To Know For Sure Surgery Was For Him
Station 19 started as a Grey’s Anatomy spinoff because Ben Warren didn’t feel as motivated by surgery as he felt by potentially helping on the scene with firefighting after seeing firefighters in action. His choice to run toward the fire had been a central story arc in both Station 19 and Grey’s Anatomy because it greatly affected Miranda and their relationship considering how much it worried her, but he still pursued firefighting because he felt the most helpful there.
However, that evidently changed in Station 19 season 7. While Ben had been medicine-focused throughout the firefighting drama, even making the PRT, inside which he could operate, a reality for Station 19, Station 19 season 7 showed Ben more eager to provide help as a doctor in the field than as a firefighter. His choice to return to surgery is not only unsurprising but also the perfect ending for Station 19, as it brings the show full circle, making Ben rediscover his passion for medicine after the spinoff had only started because he had lost it.
How The Flashforward Scenes Keep Station 19’s Core Message Intact
Andy’s Final Speech Shows The Team Moved On But What 19 Represented Lives On
Station 19’s ending guaranteed most of the team dismantled to follow their true calling or what they needed to do to grow, whether in the near future or the distant one. Still, what Beckett described in Station 19 season 7, episode 3 as Station 19’s signature “world peace, love wins, Care Bear” approach had always been part of what made that firehouse special. Indeed, throughout its seven seasons, Station 19 always had community and helping people in a supportive way at its center, but up to that point had always been the same group of characters championing that.
Showing Andy as the fire chief giving the speech reminding new recruits how “Station 19 is a construct” guaranteed what had always been at the heart of the firehouse and Station 19 as a TV show lived on, even if the firefighters that introduced that approach had long moved on to other shores. Andy’s speech had a twofold objective, as it told the new crew what they represented by becoming part of that firehouse, but it also reminded Station 19 viewers of the message at the heart of seven seasons of the firefighting drama.
Station 19 Delivered A Fitting End For Its Protagonists
All Station 19 Protagonists Achieved Their Full Potential, Wherever That Brought Them
Station 19 season 7 set up its protagonists’ happy endings since its season premiere, but season 7, episode 10 was especially apt at completing the job. Indeed, by showing them in a crisis, Station 19’s series finale focused on the stress-inducing drama that always characterized the show, but it also gave the show a chance to see what the characters wanted their future to look like, what they were working toward to, and how they saw the rest of their Station 19 family as always there for them, whatever milestone they celebrated.
Vic, Travis and Ben leaving Station 19 relatively soon was sad, but it also meant they found their true calling or finally faced what kept them from growing. Maya’s present already included family, but her future also showed her back as captain of Station 19, just like the flashforward at the end proved Ben’s comment about Andy being her “father’s wildest dreams” right, as Andy rising through the SFD ranks was what Station 19 always built up to, making Station 19’s ending the most fitting because the conclusion to its characters’ stories fully matched their journeys in the show.
