During a recent visit to the set of 9-1-1, Peter Krause likened the ABC procedural drama to a comic book about first-responders that has come to life. For seven seasons, the show has paid tribute to the real-life heroics of emergency service workers, but there is, perhaps, something even more superhuman about the way that the main characters have each been able to cheat death time and again.
In this season’s three-episode opening emergency, Krause’s character, Capt. Bobby Nash, faced multiple close calls on a hijacked and capsized cruise ship. Since then, Bobby has almost died of thirst, of heat exhaustion, of smoke inhalation, and, now in Thursday’s season finale, of a heart attack.
After saving himself and his wife, Sgt. Athena Grant-Nash (Angela Bassett), from a fire that engulfed their family home in the penultimate episode, Bobby collapsed and went into cardiac arrest. Paramedics were able to resuscitate him on their way to the hospital, but Bobby is placed on a ventilator at the start of the finale.
Rather than waiting to see whether her husband will wake up with any deficits, Athena decides to spring into action and do the one thing that she can control: apprehend whoever is responsible for setting her and Bobby’s house on fire. While Athena initially goes after Amir Casey (Malcolm-Jamal Warner), the traveling nurse who still blames Bobby for starting the fire that claimed the life of his wife back in Minnesota, Athena quickly realizes that Amir is not the arsonist.
After Amir is picked up against his will by some men who tried to kill him and Bobby in the desert in Episode 7, Athena follows them in close pursuit to a warehouse, where she overhears the criminals admitting to torching her home. In an attempt to both save Amir and lure the criminals out of the building, where the police would be waiting to arrest them, Athena uses a lighter and some flammable liquid to set the place on fire. Once outside, Athena gets some even better news: Bobby has woken up and will be just fine.
“[9-1-1 is] sort of like a Looney Tunes cartoon with Wile E. Coyote blown up by TNT or falling off a cliff, and then they just limp away with some scratches,” Krause told TV Guide. “Whether it’s Chimney getting a rebar through his head or an entire fire engine falling on Buck’s lower body, we get up like the Energizer Bunny and keep marching on.”
But it won’t be quite back to business as usual for Bobby, who secretly resigned from his post at the 118 prior to his latest medical emergency. By the time he walks back into the fire station to take his job back, Bobby — as well as the rest of his team — learns that Vincent Gerrard (Brian Thompson), the bigoted former captain of the 118, has taken back control of the fire station.
The day before the finale, Krause jumped on a quick phone call to discuss that big, season-ending cliffhanger involving Gerrard, the emotional experience of watching Bobby and Athena’s house go up in flames, and how he felt about the big reveal earlier this season that Bobby’s struggles with alcoholism and addiction actually run in his family.
You said at the start of the season about how you thought Bobby should have died on the cruise ship, and showrunner Tim Minear has now put Bobby through three more near-death experiences. How much longer do you think Bobby will be able to avoid the grim reaper before he decides to consider retirement again?
Peter Krause: Boy, I don’t know. I mean, it might not be until the end of the series, given the language of the show. Everybody survives these awful accidents. It’s sort of like a Looney Tunes cartoon with Wile E. Coyote blown up by TNT or falling off a cliff, and then they just limp away with some scratches. Whether it’s Chimney (Kenneth Choi) getting a rebar through his head or an entire fire engine falling on Buck’s lower body, we get up like the Energizer Bunny and keep marching on. But that’s the language of the show, which I really like. And that doesn’t mean that we don’t go into the realistic, deep emotional territory like we did towards the end of the season this year with Bobby and with Bobby and Athena.
I think that was one of the most interesting arcs of the season — to start with romantic comedy aboard the Poseidon Adventure homage, the extended emergency adventure that Bobby and Athena were on, to the point where you see Athena terrified that she’s going to lose Bobby. [Athena’s reaction to Bobby’s unilateral decision to resign from the 118] comes out of the anger that he didn’t let her in about his inner world and share how sometimes his own negative reflection would spool out of control and have him have dark thoughts about taking his own life. That’s quite a ways away from being on a cruise ship and having some laughs with those two characters. [Laughs.] So, hats off to Tim Minear for putting together an incredible 10-episode arc to relaunch the show on ABC. He did a fantastic job.
