Warning! The following contains spoilers from the 9-1-1 Season 9 episode “Eat The Rich.” Stream the episode with a Hulu subscription and read at your own risk!
9-1-1 returned to the 2025 TV schedule, and while there was a bittersweet feeling to the show pressing on without Peter Krause‘s Bobby Nash, the character was honored a lot in the Season 9 return. There was also a surprise nod to Star Trek that I wasn’t expecting, and a look ahead at the wild season that awaits viewers who tune in.
I recently chose to watch Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home for the first time, and as luck would have it, the classic movie came into play in the Season 9 premiere of 9-1-1. Here’s what happened, and how the space fun is only getting started for a couple of characters.
Chim Called On Star Trek Knowledge To Save A Billionaire Swallowed By A Whale
Mark Consuelos joined the 9-1-1 cast this year in a multi-episode arc where he’ll play billionaire Tripp Hauser. While his space program draws some obvious parallels to real-life billionaires, the story of one of the richest people in the world being swallowed by a humpback whale isn’t quite ripped from the headlines.
Yes, that happened on 9-1-1, but on a show that had a literal “bee-nado” last season, this is pretty tame. What caught me off guard was that Chim stepped into his role as acting captain in a rather surprising way and managed to save Hauser, utilizing knowledge he remembered from watching Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
Using sound from the siren funneled to firehoses, the crew produced enough sound to convince the whale to breach, and spit Hauser out before he ran out of oxygen and died. As a reward to Hen for performing CPR and reviving him, he offered a seat for her and a plus-one on his latest space mission, which perfectly segues into who she chose to go with her.
Hen And Athena Are Headed To Space, And Of Course, There’s A Disaster On The Way
Hen had a lot of people in the fire house who wanted to go, but she ultimately settled on picking Athena as her partner up in space. 9-1-1 viewers might’ve expected it wouldn’t be a smooth trip, but of course, the ABC series left all mystery aside as it revealed the space station is hit with a debris-filled geostorm once they make it up there. Check out the promo below:
Watch On
Considering how stressful that situation looks, I’d say Athena and Hen are keeping a pretty cool head! Of course, they’ve both dealt with their fair share of disasters in nine seasons, so maybe they’re a bit conditioned to operating in chaos at this point.
Is this where 9-1-1 blindsides us with the sudden deaths of Hen and Athena? I would be very surprised if that were the case, but they’re both in uncharted territory for the show. Fans have joked that the Ryan Murphy show is attempting to go toe-for-toe with the Fast & Furious franchise, and I can’t say I disagree.
The good thing about that is that plenty of weird stuff happens in the F&F franchise that we no longer question, and one of those things is the characters surviving insurmountable odds. Despite 9-1-1 losing Bobby, I would say that rule applies here as well, and I don’t think we’re going to see the show kill off even more stars in some space disaster. That just makes me more excited and wondering how they’ll get out of a jam so far from Earth, but I have faith Hen and Athena can pull it off.
New episodes of 9-1-1 premiere on ABC on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. ET. Viewers are currently being treated to a double-dose of the franchise thanks to the new 9-1-1: Nashville spinoff, so if ever there was a time to watch live, it’s now.