My ranking of all the official "Begins" episodes

I left this in a youtube comment but then I started going into way too much detail and so I figured I'd share with the class.

  1. Chimney Begins - While it has its awkward writing moments (a bit of an over-reliance on montages), it's easily the most cohesive and emotionally effective one, and I really like the framing of Chim's life flashing before his eyes while he's bleeding out.
  2. Bobby Begins Again - Just a really solid, fun episode. It really feels like you're watching the team we know and love start to come together.
  3. Buck Begins - I like the flashbacks (the kids they got to play young Buck and Maddie were really good!), but I feel like the scene where Buck's rescuing that guy in the fire just goes on for way too long.
  4. Hen Begins - I think the writing is a little clunky and it's so much about Hen's experience as a black lesbian in a hostile environment that it feels like it's somewhat lacking in insight about her as a person. But Aisha Hinds is fantastic as usual, and I really love that it shows us how Hen and Chimney became friends.
  5. Athena Begins - A pretty good, well-written episode, but I really can't get past the copaganda. The way the incorporate the beating of Rodney King in particular is genuinely infuriating.
  6. Eddie Begins - For as much talk as there is in the fandom about the show's copaganda through Athena, I don't think there's nearly enough criticism of the US military propaganda with Eddie. I know that kind of thing is a staple of shows like these (Grey's has so much of it) but it's still pretty annoying. And at least Athena Begins tells us new things about Athena and has Angela Bassett anchoring it. Eddie Begins has none of that going for it and it has terrible politics.

With that said, while I know she is in Buck Begins a lot, I still think it's really weird that Maddie is the only main character without an official "Begins" episode.

Edit: A lot of people seem to be bothered by my saying that Eddie Begins includes military propaganda, so I'll reiterate here what I said in one of the comments: I'm a hardliner on this. I think any depiction of the US invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan that has zero interest in questioning what the US is doing there and the horrible death toll and harm that it's causing, is propaganda. Besides, the episode's arc is about him embracing the silver star. I mean it ends with him giving that presentation in Christopher's class.