What goes around comes around, the 118 deal with emergencies that are the outcomes of karma. After donating blood, Bobby discovers he has special blood that could save the lives of numerous children. Athena and Michael move forward with their divorce. Buck and Abby take their relationship to the next level. Hen’s transgressions with her ex come into light.
The 118's first response to a 9-1-1 call reveals to be a widower who cared little for his ex-wife. After she tried to shoot and kill him with a 9mm pistol and missed, hitting the tree behind him, she hung herself from said tree, unable to cope with his abuse any longer, which the 118 responded to a year earlier, and the tree soon suffered from the foreign damage and toxic fungus. The husband decided to take down the tree himself using hunting explosives and a hunting rifle, but the remains of the bullet from his ex-wife's missed shot flew out of the tree and hit him in the chest, fatally wounding him. He dies as Hen is trying to treat him, and she can only say "Karma's a bitch" in regards to his Laser-Guided Karma.
In the meantime, Chimney has the 118 donate at the blood drive, and they're able to convince Captain Nash to donate as well, despite his fear of needles. Alongside that, Nash visits the local church to speak with the pastor about his mission to atone for the death of his family and 145 other souls that died due to his irresponsibility, hoping that doing so will help him find penance before death claims him.
The 118's next call is the Metro Fitness exercise center, where they find the manager fatally cooked alive in his malfunctioning tanning bed, having ignored warnings to get the tanning bed fixed. One of his ex-employees reveals that she had tried to save his dog from heat exhaustion after he locked it in his truck by smashing the window, and he fired her for it when he ignored her warnings about leaving it in there, despite the danger, and she warned him that "What goes around, comes around", meaning he would be punished for his ignorance and being an ungrateful jerk. The third call they respond to is for the Porch Pirate, a woman who stole packages delivered to her neighbors, and ironically tripped and fell, breaking her hip bone, leading to her not just needing to go to the hospital, but also be arrested by Athena for her thieving, trespassing, and other crimes.
The next call for the 118 is at the zoo, where a dentist tried to lure a tiger out for his kids to see, but while he was in the restroom, the tiger, as if seeking retribution for a lion that the dentist was responsible for killing on a safari trip, escapes its habitat and tracks its harasser down. The dentist also stupidly tries to run rather than remain frozen in place, and by the time park rangers, Athena, and the 118 arrive, the dentist has been caught and being feasted on by the tiger before it is tranquilized and subdued. The tiger's trainer is also severely wounded when he tried to subdue it after it initially escaped, but would survive, and the tiger would be spared being euthanized since it was clearly provoked and public sentiment would favor the big cat over the big-cat-killer.
Meanwhile, Captain Nash learns that his blood is a rare type that could save the numerous lives of children from a potentially fatal disease, but he refuses to acknowledge it, being forced to confess to Chimney in a fit of anger about what happened in St. Paul and how once he gets his atonement, he wants to die to be with his family again, no questions asked. He doesn't care about saving children, he wants his children, the ones who died because of his irresponsibility. He completes his penance, he wants God to kill him and be done with the suffering of still being on Earth while his family is enjoying life in Heaven.
Athena and Hen arrive at another call where the victim was DOA (Dead On Arrival). The victim being some loser who robbed a store, then got hit by a dump truck, fatally wounding him.
It is not until later when Nash meets with a pair of parents who just had their first child, a healthy baby daughter, who was able to live thanks to Nash's blood, that he finally understands that his penance for St. Paul is not a curse, but a blessing, and is able to put it behind him, realizing he does not need to be Driven to Suicide once he atones for the lives killed by his irresponsibility and should keep saving as many lives as he can as that's his job and duty as one of Los Angeles' Bravest.
Tropes featured in the episode:
- Artistic License – Biology: The father of the baby saved by Bobby's blood said "she's our first" then said that they were worried she wouldn't make it. Rhesus disease is almost never fatal for first born children. Possibly justified if the mother has had one or more previous children with another man, or received Rh-positive blood by mistake.
- Asshole Victim: The victims of the 9-1-1 calls. The Porch Pirate subverts this, not dying, but going through some form of karma.
- Balancing Death's Books: What Bobby speaks to the pastor about regarding his little black book keeping track of the lives he's saved so far to atone for the 148 lives lost due to his irresponsibility in St. Paul. The pastor warns Bobby that his actions could mean severe consequences for his eternal soul as God would not approve of Bobby's actions, but Bobby believes in a Karmic Jackpot once he satisfies the Grim Reaper with saving the number of lives he was responsible for killing.
- Body Horror: Let's say remember to keep the timer dial on your tanning bed functional otherwise you'll end up boiled to a crisp like the fitness club owner.
- Idiot Ball/ The World's Expert (on Getting Killed): The dentist, who mentions in his 911 call that he’s been in the field with tiger’s before and knows how fast they can run, decides the best course of action is to run away rather than staying still.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The entire point of this episode; as various folks who did some bad things are hit by ironic fates, the team is thrown by how utterly bizarre it all is:
- A woman tries to shoot her abusive husband but misses and the bullet gets stuck in a tree. The woman then hangs herself from that tree and her husband doesn't even care that he drove her to do it. He tries to blow up the tree later on...and the explosion causes the bullet to fly out and hit him in the chest.
- An arrogant fitness club owner left his dog inside a hot car and fired an assistant for breaking her out. The next day, that assistant comes in to pick up her last paycheck and finds the guy almost charred alive when his tanning bed broke.
- A woman steals packages from the doors of people right after they've been delivered. She ends up falling and breaking her femur trying to carry one large package away and is arrested by Athena while lying in pain.
- A dentist becomes hated for killing a lion during a safari trip. He ends up being mauled by a tiger at a zoo.
- It's mentioned that the team handled off-screen a guy who robbed a convenience store and was hit by a dump truck as he fled.
- Inverted with Nash, whose plan to kill himself once he's balanced the scales is ironically undone when he's given the opportunity, and moral obligation, to stay alive and keep saving others.
- Take That!: The dentist who killed a lion being later killed by a tiger is a reference to Walter Palmer, a real life dentist hated for killing Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe.
