Ryan Guzman’s hero firefighter — who left his high-risk job in the Fox series’ winter finale — has “to take a journey,” says producer Kristen Reidel, who also teases Chimney’s return
In the 9-1-1 winter finale, pillar of the 118 Eddie Diaz (Ryan Guzman) left his team in search of a position with a higher chance of coming home to his son every night — and EW has an exclusive preview of his new desk job in the video below.
Eddie has traded his fire hose and emergency response protocols for a breakroom coffee pot and copier manual, working as a public service officer at the 9-1-1 call center, and series producer Kristen Reidel promises this is not just a short detour for the concerned dad.
“We ended the Christmas episode with Eddie announcing that he was leaving the 118, and that was a big move — and I’m sure it annoyed many people in the audience,” says Reidel. “But it’s a big move, and you need to honor the big move. Eddie’s going to have a little journey that he’s got to do in these next few episodes. Eddie’s not okay, and he probably should not be holding anybody’s life in his hands until he gets his own together.”
But just because he won’t be out on calls with his firehouse family doesn’t mean Guzman is sidelined on the series. “Eddie’s journey is not in a vacuum. It’s not Eddie alone. We we will see other members of the 118 as part of his journey,” says Reidel, who goes on to give a little insight into how long Hen (Aisha Hinds), Buck (Oliver Stark), and Bobby (Peter Krause) will be without Eddie and Chimney (Kenneth Choi) — the latter away looking for his girlfriend, Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt, on maternity leave in real life): “I think Chimney will be back sooner. Eddie’s going to take a little bit longer to come back to the fold.”
