“They’re on the path. But it’s not necessarily a direct line,” Kristen Reidel, showrunner of the Fox drama, says of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Maddie and Kenneth Choi’s Chimney.
First comes love, then comes… a bunch of trauma, a baby in a baby carriage, and buying a house together. Then comes marriage?
Monday’s episode of 9-1-1 ended with Chimney (Kenneth Choi) looking at engagement rings for Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) after an entanglement with the IRS left them both thinking about the legalities around their relationship.
“After everything they’ve been through, we knew that this season we wanted to get Maddie and Chimney back together and let them have some fun and rebuild that relationship,” showrunner Kirsten Reidel tells EW. “At some point the question of marriage was going to come up and we thought, ‘What if we could bring up the idea and take them both by surprise?'”
So, is a Maddie and Chimney engagement around the corner?
“They’re on the path,” Reidel teases. “But it’s not necessarily a direct line. There might be a few twists and turns to come.” That said, she acknowledges that “there’s just something about seeing these two people together that makes you love them and want to root for them.”
And love may be in the air elsewhere on 9-1-1 as well.
On last week’s episode, Eddie (Ryan Guzman) went on an ill-fated blind date of sorts with his aunt’s friend’s niece Vanessa (Natalie Ceballos) and this week saw him realize that while he still mourns the death of his wife, Shannon (Devin Kelley), he also needs to live life more.
“I think Eddie has done a lot of work on himself to get to a healthy place,” Reidel says. “He’s been focusing inward. Now he’s ready to open himself up to the world and see where it takes him.”
Then on this week’s season 6, episode 15, Buck (Oliver Stark) spent time with death doula Natalia (Annelise Cepero), and Buck seemed pretty smitten when he told Eddie about their time together. Will we be seeing more of Natalia in the future?
“Yes,” Reidel says. “Buck is intrigued by Natalia and we’ll see him try to get to her know her better in the coming weeks — though he keeps getting interrupted.”