‘9-1-1’: ‘Nashville’s Kimberly Williams-Paisley Crosses Over to Help Save Athena & Hen in Space

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 3 “The Sky is Falling.”]

“Can anything make this day worse?” Chimney (Kenneth Choi) asks at one point in the Thursday, October 23, episode of 9-1-1. Everything that can go wrong does, both on the ground in L.A. as debris falls from space, and in space, as those on the space vessel Inara run into problem after problem.

Fortunately, Athena (Angela Bassett), Hen (Aisha Hinds), and those on the space vessel Inara are able to put the fire out — Athena opens the emergency hatch, but it flies off as well, leaving the Inara essentially a “convertible.” Their suits only have an hour and six minutes of oxygen. Tripp (Mark Consuelos), meanwhile, is out there giving a press conference that makes it sound like his company did all it could and helped the crew — no, that would be Karen (Tracie Thoms), who stepped up — but all has likely been lost due to no fault of their own (yes, it’s entirely his fault).

But Karen and Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) aren’t giving up hope, and rather than wait the hour until the Inara is in satellite range again, Maddie makes a call. 9-1-1: Nashville‘s Cammie (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) brings up the extreme weather they’re dealing with (tornadoes and the like), while Maddie counters with, “It’s raining fire here.” And so Cammie has someone get a satellite phone to the roof, then calls Hen and patches her through to Los Angeles. Maddie also has other dispatch centers on standby for when they’re out of Nashville’s range. Watch the crossover moment in the video above.

Then comes the new plan: They’re going to the International Space Station. Fortunately, Lewis (Geoff Pierson) can fly the vessel there (“I only do passenger jets,” says Athena), but there’s another problem: NASA has lost contact with the ISS, and the vessel is going to lose communication with the ground the higher and faster they go, which they have to. But they should get there just before they run out of oxygen.

The Inara isn’t designed to dock with the ISS, but Karen says they can “walk” over if they’re close enough to an outer airlock … and then they lose contact. Lewis guides them about 30 feet away from the airlock, then it’s time to jump. That’s when Parker (Rio Mangini) panics when he runs out of oxygen. Athena pushes him across, and they all get in safely, but there seems to be no one on board alive. (They see someone dead floating outside.) When they do find someone alive, but injured, and Hen treats her, she informs them that the ISS is in the middle of a debris field. It’s been hit three times, and it can’t withstand a fourth, which comes right then! The episode ends with the ISS getting hit hard.

Meanwhile, back on the ground, the 118 responds to the aftermath of that “raining fire,” specifically underground on a train. They evacuate nearly everyone, but one woman is trapped. There’s water pouring in on them because it hasn’t been shut off like it should be, no help is coming, and the only solution is, as Eddie (Ryan Guzman) argues, to amputate her leg. He can do it since he was trained when he went to Afghanistan. Chimney’s reluctant and admits he keeps thinking, what would Bobby do right now? Unfortunately, there isn’t another solution. Chimney, who has decided that as captain, he’ll be the one to do it, talks to her husband. “If I do this, she has a chance to live,” he says, not offering false hope.

When it looks like Chimney’s hesitating to begin, Eddie offers to do it. “Nah, I’ve been waiting months for this interim captain thing to come to an end. I think this will finally do it,” Chimney says and cuts off her leg. “Tell her to hate me. I was the one in charge,” he tells her husband as she’s taken off to the hospital. Eddie assures him he made the right call.

What did you think of the latest episode? Let us know in the comments section below.

9-1-1, Thursdays, 8/7c, ABC