In an exclusive preview of “9-1-1” season 8, episode 2, “When the Boeing Gets Tough,” Bassett’s Athena Grant faces an unimaginable plane crisis.
Nothing is ever easy on 9-1-1.
After being tasked with transporting the prisoner who murdered her fiancé (who apparently has a hit out on him because he is planning on snitching on a fellow inmate), Athena (Angela Bassett) ended the season 8 premiere of the ABC first responder drama on a plane in crises.
The “bee-nado” unleashed on Los Angeles in the premiere wreaked havoc on a small plane, sending the pilot into a panic — and also into Athena’s passenger airliner.
In a preview clip exclusive to Entertainment Weekly, Athena finds herself in the cockpit and on the phone with air traffic controllers on the ground, who have a plan on how to get the Los Angeles police officer and her fellow passengers safely to the ground: “I’m gonna land the plane?! That is not a great plan,” Athena says in the clip.
To help Athena in her new role, the air traffic controllers have called in a flight school instructor who has taught students, but only on a simulator.
“On a simulator, when you make a mistake, you get another chance. There are people on this plane!” Athena replies.
And that’s not all. “There’s something else that you should know,” Athena says. “There’s a hole in the plane. Another one in the back. A piece of the plane that hit us, is sticking right through the roof.”
Oh, that’s all?
The entire plane catastrophe storyline is an homage to the classic disaster film Airport ’75, which, as showrunner Tim Minear has explained to EW, is about “a flight attendant having to land a jet after a collision with a light aircraft.”“There are injuries to be taken care of on the plane,” Minear continued, teasing what’s to come in tonight’s episode. “It’s just a thrill ride of ‘How is Athena Grant going to keep everybody on this plane, and on the ground, and herself, safe? And how is she going to get home to the man that she loves? And from the ground, what can [Peter Krause’s] Bobby do to make sure that happens?’”
