[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 17 “Don’t Drink the Water.”]
This is the 9-1-1 episode we wanted after Bobby’s (Peter Krause) heartbreaking demise. The penultimate episode of Season 8 continues to dive into the grief of these left behind, from Athena (Angela Bassett) and Chimney (Kenneth Choi) each fighting the truth that Bobby gave him the one dose of the anti-viral and died to Hen (Aisha Hinds) determining if she needs to be the brand new captain, from Buck (Oliver Stark) making an attempt to examine on everybody and maintain it collectively himself after Bobby’s final phrases to him to Eddie (Ryan Guzman) coping with how he came upon and the truth that he wasn’t there. And it does so in typical 9-1-1 vogue, interspersed with the kinds of calls we’ve come to anticipate from this primary responder drama.
The episode opens on everybody on the 118, together with Eddie and Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody), again when he was probie, gathered for a meal — together with Bobby. On the 118, the captain says, we work as a household, help one another as a household, and eat collectively as a household. He’s recalling after they delivered all these infants again in Season 1 and … Buck’s actually simply sitting alone on the desk, remembering.
Buck’s been doing psychological assessments of everybody’s grief degree (Eddie obtained a 12, Hen a 17), and Eddie’s frightened about him spending all his time worrying, he shares with Hen and Karen (Tracie Thoms). (Give us extra of those three collectively ASAP. Why did it take this lengthy?!) Eddie admits that he couldn’t keep in mind when he final spoke to Bobby after he obtained the information; it was a textual content alternate about sluggish cookers. When Karen remarks on him nonetheless being in Los Angeles, Eddie admits he hadn’t deliberate on staying this lengthy however it’s good being dwelling and spending time along with his Aunt Pepa (Terri Hoyos) after her stroke (she’s good). Hen and Karen don’t let him get away with calling Los Angeles “dwelling,” with the latter pointing on the market could be an open spot on the 118 quickly for a paramedic with Hen supplied the captain place. Hen agrees he ought to come again, whether or not she takes it or not, however he’s gotten a job supply from a fireplace division, too — in El Paso. He hasn’t informed Buck.
Disney / Christopher Willard
Buck goes to confession — Welcome again, Father Brian, if solely we noticed his response to Bobby’s demise — and Googles the steps of it on his telephone. He’s making an attempt to get a message to his buddy whom he’d go to for recommendation, and whereas folks at all times discuss feeling a cherished one’s presence, he hasn’t but. As soon as the priest leaves him alone, Buck offers speaking to Bobby a attempt: “Cap, Bobby, you have been flawed. You stated I’d be okay, and I’m not. And so they don’t want me. I carry on making an attempt and I attain out, however everyone seems to be simply spinning away. We don’t speak, we don’t even eat collectively. All the pieces is falling aside, and I don’t know how you can repair it. So I would like you to — I would like you to return again right here and I would like you to inform me what to do. I would like you to offer me an indication as a result of…” He’s getting emotional when an earthquake (extra about that later) hits (which he thinks might be that signal).
By the point Eddie walks into Buck’s/his previous home, his finest buddy has came upon in regards to the job supply in El Paso. (Hen informed Chimney she wished to throw him a shock BBQ, and Chimney informed Ravi, who then requested Buck if he ought to carry a present.) Each get emotional and each lash out, pushed by the anger of their grief. Buck thinks everybody’s been tiptoeing round him as a result of they suppose he’s too fragile to simply accept the reality, and Eddie argues he wouldn’t have been comfortable for him and as a substitute makes all of it about him and “the trials and tribulations of Evan Buckley, a tragedy in 97 acts.” (The optimistic spin on this? Solely folks as shut as they’re to one another know the place to hit the place it actually hurts.)
Eddie says Buck has been spiraling for the reason that funeral, however he’s not the one one who misplaced him. All of them did. “You by no means requested what it was like, waking up, in the course of the evening, to that information,” Eddie shares, as a flashback reveals simply that second after which him sitting on the ground, crying. “Sitting alone at the hours of darkness, making an attempt to maintain it collectively, so I don’t scare the crap out of my child. And when he awakened, I needed to inform him one other particular person he cherished was lifeless.” Bobby saved his life, and Eddie will at all times surprise if he might have made a distinction if he was there. Buck asks if he doesn’t suppose he did all the pieces he might to avoid wasting him, however Eddie doesn’t know, as a result of he wasn’t there. He walks out, and the subsequent morning, Buck finds the blankets folded on the sofa and a word, “Went to the airport.”
So, Buck’s stunned when he will get dwelling later to seek out Eddie there. He thought Buck might use some cheering up, so he went to the airport to choose up his son, Christopher (Gavin McHugh). Buck and Christopher share a candy hug and condolences about Bobby’s demise earlier than Eddie reveals extra of his household there: Aunt Pepa! She, too, greets Buck with a hug, and he or she’s the one Buck opens as much as.
“Bobby was our heart,” he says. “With out him, all the pieces feels off-balance, sort of just like the gravity is gone, you recognize?” Pepa tells him that after her stroke, she was afraid as a result of she couldn’t transfer her hand and thought her life would by no means be the identical, however due to quite a lot of prayer and occupational remedy, she’s accepted that life is change and it’s unavoidable.
In the meantime, Athena is all on board with Hen being the 118’s new captain — it’s the most effective factor for everybody, as she sees it — however the paramedic/firefighter nonetheless thinks of Bobby as Cap. He’d need it for her, his widow provides. However Hen isn’t positive if she needs it and factors out Athena turned down a promotion herself (to lieutenant, which might’ve meant extra paperwork than defend and repair). However issues get awkward when Chimney walks in, having taken his daughter and Hen and Karen’s youngsters to the films, and Athena could be very clearly not comfortable to listen to or see him.
When Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) arrives dwelling, it’s to seek out Chimney placing collectively a crib. He tells her about Athena and the dialog he and Bobby had in regards to the captain taking care of Maddie and the children when he thought he would die. Chimney is aware of that Bobby will need to have recognized at that time he was contaminated and thinks he determined to sacrifice himself as a result of he reminded him he had a child on the best way. (Showrunner Tim Minear informed TV Insider, “You may see even by that goddamn face masks, that’s the second that Bobby makes the choice that if there’s a option to be made Chimney’s strolling out and he’s not.”) Maddie factors out that even when that’s the case, Chimney had no concept that Bobby had been uncovered and wasn’t making an attempt to control him. She’ll be without end grateful for him saving Chimney’s life. As a lot as Chimney needs to maintain Athena like Bobby would have with Maddie, it appears unimaginable for now.
That’s one thing that each Chimney and Athena agree on, because the latter opens as much as Karen — 9-1-1 is giving us so many pairings/groupings we’ve wished through the years, so can Eddie and Maddie please be subsequent? — when she brings by a housewarming present: a framed photograph of the 118 from Hen and Karen’s vow renewal in Season 5 (you may simply see Lucy on the finish). Athena doesn’t blame him, she stresses, and he or she is aware of it’s not truthful, however she nonetheless sees Bobby, who’s not right here, when she sees the person who’s, Chimney. “You’re grieving, so truthful can go thoughts its personal rattling enterprise,” Karen assures her. “We simply need to be there for you, Athena. You don’t have to do that alone.” For now, Athena decides, she and Chimney will simply be skilled. Karen simply makes positive she is aware of that when folks ask about the identical photograph she gave her of their home, she doesn’t say Hen’s coworkers however fairly, “That’s our household.”
Disney / Christopher Willard
In the meantime, that earthquake causes a crack on the Los Angeles Headworks Reservoir Southeast Division. It upset an underground gasoline pocket, resulting in methane effervescent up from water with explosive outcomes. That features calls on the dentist — Hello, once more, Lorna (Phoebe Neidhardt), from Season 3’s “Christmas Spirit” — and a lady’s rest room when her tub blows up. The 118 is named to a multi-story construction fireplace at a industrial constructing, with Gerrard (Brian Thompson) nonetheless round as captain and really complimentary. (He additionally nonetheless doesn’t really feel like Gerrard however this bizarre mixture of the captain the 118 wants within the physique of somebody acquainted performed by an actor who clearly cares about these folks.) With their water sources restricted, and with the 118’s concept for a hose relay, directed by Maddie, they’re capable of put out the hearth earlier than it turns into too harmful because it encroaches on the realm the place lithium-ion batteries are saved (which might lead to a poisonous blaze).
With Gerrard passing out satisfaction surveys, Chimney can’t look ahead to Hen to be again in cost, however his ride-or-die reveals she’s turned down the job. She doesn’t need to be the captain, she explains. She’s not good at telling folks what to do as a result of she tells them what to do then steps in and does it herself. She’d fairly be a hands-on paramedic, then go dwelling and be hands-on mother and spouse and he or she thinks Bobby would perceive that.
Lastly, the set-up for the finale emergency comes throughout Athena’s name. She encounters Graham the Cart Cop once more (Season 8’s “Wannabes”) as he’s now going after folks in his constructing for shirking and leaving their garments in washing machines after they’re accomplished. Simply as she’s left after being referred to as about him once more, there’s an explosion within the constructing in entrance of her and it collapses. Athena will get out of her automobile and radios in for assist.
What did you consider how 9-1-1 dealt with everybody’s grief on this episode and the set-up for the finale emergency? Tell us within the feedback part under.
9-1-1, Season 8 Finale, Thursday, Might 15, 8/7c, ABC