[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the 9-1-1: Nashville series premiere “Pilot.”]
9-1-1: Nashville kicks off in classic franchise fashion: with the tease of a major emergency. During a Kane Brown concert, after part of the stage collapses, a tornado approaches. Then, flashback to two weeks earlier, when Captain Don Hart (Chris O’Donnell) introduces his son Ryan (Michael Provost) to his other son Blue (Hunter McVey).
We meet Don — distracted by something on his phone — and Ryan first as a father-son duo at the rodeo; they break a record, but Don gets bucked off after (he’s fine). Blythe (Jessica Capshaw) is the proud wife/mother. Dispatcher Cammie (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) is Ryan’s aunt who helps Taylor (Hailey Kilgore) with her music in her downtime at the 113. It’s soon after that that Don, after Ryan calls him out on lying to Blythe about why he was bucked off — he was riding with too much tension, according to his son — tries to tell Ryan something. A news report about storms on the way interrupts them.
That means that that secret comes out when the 113 and Blue bump into each other during a call. Blue steps in, while in his stripper firefighter costume (Captain Smokeshow), to help after a bachelorette party pedal pub crashes. He uses stripper oil to free the bride-to-be and introduces himself as “Blue, like the color.” Ryan’s impressed, suggesting he call them if he wants to make a career shift … and then Don reveals that Blue is his brother.
Once alone in Don’s office, Ryan immediately questions how he could cheat on his mother. Don reveals that he and Blythe once separated when Ryan was a kid, and during that time (and before they realized how much they loved each other and had something worth saving), he “reconnected” with an ex at a nightclub, Dixie (LeAnn Rimes). He found out she was pregnant on Ryan’s birthday. Five days ago, Blue reached out online, having taken an ancestry test, and wanted to meet since he’s a likely match for his father. Don hadn’t mustered up the courage to reply. But he’s now thinking the change might not be a bad thing, pointing out Ryan may be right about him working there. His son says that was before he knew he was a stripper. “He was a stripper who showed up to our scene dressed as a firefighter,” Don says (which is supposed to mean he can be a firefighter?). “I just got his feeling. This place is where he’s meant to be.”
Blue then shows up at the 113, wanting to take them up on the job offer. He even already quit stripping. Ryan (rightfully) argues he needs training, and he can’t sign up for the fire academy for six months. But Don, way too happy under the circumstances, suggests afire cadet exception, with in-field training until he’s ready to be a probie. That’s usually only under extraordinary circumstances, and Don thinks that finding his long-lost brother on a call qualifies. Ryan’s against it, but Don reminds him he’s the captain.
Ryan then goes to see Blythe about Don betraying them, but she tells him she knows about Blue. They were separated, so Don didn’t cheat, she insists, plus, she had her fun, too. They even took care of Blue until last year. But “hell hath no fury like Dixie Bennings scorned,” Blythe says, and when she and Blythe stayed together, Dixie punished him by keeping him from Blue and not telling him who his dad was. Blythe doesn’t seem to react too well to Ryan revealing Don having a fantasy of being a big happy family at the 113 (“Does he really?”). He’s not sure if he can look at his father the same, and Blythe says no one’s perfect.
But as a conversation between Blue and his mother at home reveals, they have a plan. Dixie feels wronged, having received zero credit for her help from major artists, and she lost her singing voice to polyps (and smoking a pack a day). She’s been done dirty her whole life, as she sees it, and their plan will save her livelihood (pay for a surgery), but he feels bad manipulating his father to do it. Dixie argues he has plenty to go around with his wealthy wife, Blythe (of whom she’s clearly not a fan). Dixie also reminds him that his dad didn’t respond when he initially reached out, and he only looked at him after the rescue. She urges him to go into the firehouse and start sinking his hooks into them; the universe put him where he is for a reason, and they’re finally going to get what’s coming to them.
Blue then joins the 113 — Don casually dropping he’s his son at the end of the introductions — before they’re called to Kane Brown’s concert for the stage collapse, with a tornado minutes away. And when their pulley stalls, Don decides that everyone — including civilians rallied by Kane Brown — will lift the pieces of the stage off the victims trapped (reminiscent of when everyone, including civilians, stepped forward to do just that when Buck’s leg was trapped under a truck on 9-1-1). But when they realize someone’s trapped up on a piece of the stage hanging, Don, Ryan, and Blue climb up … just as the twister’s reaching them.
What did you think of the series premiere of 9-1-1: Nashville? Let us know in the comments section below.
9-1-1: Nashville, Thursdays, 9/8c, ABC