Obvious spoilers for 9-1-1, most of which are in headlines at this point
9-1-1 was my comfort watch show every week for years. It spawned a single spinoff, 9-1-1: Lone Star, that was decent but not as good, and there’s another spinoff coming later this year, 9-1-1: Nashville, which will star Chris O’Donnell. The appeal of 9-1-1 is how utterly ridiculous it is as Los Angeles firefighters respond to the most outrageous scenarios you can imagine, not necessarily coming out unscathed, but always alive. The core cast cannot be killed. Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character Maddie got her throat cut and survived, and Angela Bassett’s character Athena landed a passenger jet on an LA freeway inches away from her husband, fire Captain Bobby Nash. There is a formula to this show that viewers like me rely on, a kind of unspoken contract. We will get wildly entertaining and patently ridiculous scenarios and our favorite characters will live on. This is a video game-like show and for years it has known exactly what it is, until a couple of weeks ago when one of the leads, Captain Bobby Nash, was killed in a lab accident.
Without getting into details, I disliked the lab leak plot almost immediately, which I should have taken as a sign. Luckily I didn’t have to see Bobby’s death because the Internet spoiled it for me. I’m also grateful that other people have watched last week’s follow up episode chronicling Bobby’s funeral and his wife Athena’s grief. I loved those two together and I’m not going to give this show another minute of my time. I’m going to quote Collider’s Jennie Richardson’s recap because she helped me feel confident in my decision to ditch this once great show.
Even after watching his death scene and reading all the exit interviews, I just couldn’t imagine what 9-1-1 would look like without Bobby. We finally got the answer, and here is 9-1-1 without Bobby: all of the grieving scenes feel like they’re from a different show, 9-1-1’s tone just feels off, and the episode is surprisingly boring. Everyone is keeping it together much more than I had expected, with Buck (Oliver Stark) in particular holding back his own grief to help Chimney (Bobby would be so proud of him). Eddie (Ryan Guzman) returns for the funeral, but oddly without Christopher (Gavin McHugh), who also loved Bobby. We get a short but cute Buddie moment, but even that feels out of place in the episode. The sweet and fun 9-1-1 is struggling to coexist with the version of the show where Bobby is dead. The funeral happens just like we saw in the leaks, and it is definitely real, but it’s more a tribute to firefighters in general than Bobby specifically.
Sure, Bobby’s death offered a heartbreaking death scene, moments for the extremely talented cast to do some impressive acting, and a shocking twist. But then what? The stakes have been raised in the world of 9-1-1, but the show has been irrevocably changed. What was once a comforting procedural to return to every Thursday night will now have us sitting on the edge of our seats, waiting for the show to decide whom it wants to kill off next. If this week’s episode is what we should expect from 9-1-1 from now on, then the show had better course correct quickly, because it’s just not sustainable.
Richardson wrote that she kept watching because she hoped that Bobby’s death was a feint and that he wouldn’t actually be dead. Instead, he really died, Athena was heartbroken, and the show’s contract with the audience was forever broken. As for why showrunner Tim Minear decided to kill Capt. Nash, he told TVLine that it was a whim basically. He said “This was entirely a creative decision on my part… if the stakes are never real, if there’s really no chance that any of this peril in which these characters find themselves amounts to anything, I think the show could die.” The whole show is going to die because of this dumbass decision. Minear issued a better statement later about it, some horsesh-t about honoring first responders, but we know why he did it – because he could. It also seems particularly aimed at Angela Bassett, who gave an interview just this March saying she couldn’t imagine Anthena without Bobby. Maybe she said that because she knew what was coming, but I hope it means that she moves on to a show that honors and appreciates her. As Dustin at Pajiba so aptly wrote, Athena and the 118 deserve better. We all deserved better.
The comments on Angela Bassett’s post below are giving me life. So many people are saying on this post and on all of 9-1-1’s posts that they won’t be watching anymore.
It was a really bad decision to kill off Bobby, he and Athena are the glue that hold the show together. I won’t be watching without him
Same here, he was the heart of the show. Killing him off was a big mistake and I won’t be watching anymore.
Yep thanks to the spoilers I didn’t watch the death episode and I am done. I loved Bobby and Athena and they were the rock of the show. I’m out as well
My Dad turned me on to this show, as his Dad was a firefighter for 30+ years. First, Eddie basically leaves, or his character is minimalised, he’s my favorite, then Bobby dies. The replacement better be spectacular or I’m out too.
Athena will be written a new love interest. This is why Bobby had to be written out; to provide the writers with new material.
I have not watched the funeral episode yet; I’m putting it off, and I may not watch it, or this show again.. While I realize sometimes you *do* need to give a show a kick in the ass to wake it up, but Bobby and Athena are at the very core of the show. Bobby especially gave the show a “compassion compass”. While I don’t think ANY other character (other than Athena) being killed off would bring the same emotional punch, I definitely could’ve accepted Chim succumbing to the virus. God knows all Maddie does on this show is constantly cry: this would give her the best reason to continue showcasing her superb crying on cue skill. Even Hen, as much as I like her character, has become so saccharine; I wouldn’t have cared much if she was the one.
But BOBBY… yeah, no. I’m done.
I haven’t watched the past two episodes but I’m holding out for a small chance that the show that started the season with a freaking bee-nado is going to do some govt. conspiracy back from the dead story. That would be slightly more in line than whatever this is. I’ve geared myself for disappointment though.
Ha! Thank u for this post @CB. I’m so angry over this, lol. I specifically watched this show bc it provided some silly and fun adrenaline while knowing that no one would die. The chemistry between the cast has always been top-notch, so it was almost like Friends but with disasters. If I wanted to watch a show where I had to worry about people being killed off then I would’ve. My only hope is the truthers on SM calling it an elaborate hoax and that he’s not really dead. Which would be awesome but it’s pretty clear we can’t have good things. So yeah, thx for killing off the character in this year of all years, post our collective November tragedy.
I am of the opinion that main characters can be killed off and it be okay, when it’s done in a meaningful way. Like they are sick and you have a few episodes to prepare. Or on a show like Game of Thrones when you know someone is going to die every other episode. But I think it’s actually cruel to the fans who are watching a show like 9-1-1 as an escape to randomly kill off a beloved character. Like they didn’t kill off Stabler on SVU, he retired. If they just had him die in a random episode I would have been so irritated.
I don’t go here but I felt it for the 9-1-1 fans — especially after that piss poor explanation from the show runner. It was such a poor decision and I don’t blame the fans for defecting.
I hate when writers kill off people for the fun of it. It always feels forced. When the actor actually wants to leave I feel the writing is better. I haven’t watched the recent episodes but Bobby is such a core character that the show as they say “jumped the shark”.
My guess is this was a cost cutting move for a show in its eighth(?) season. I’m guessing Peter Krause isn’t cheap, so killing him off helps the bottom line.
9-1-1 wasn’t my style of comfort watch, but I saw enough of it to know why it has a lot of fans. This is just beyond stupid. Does this showrunner know how tough things are in Hollywood right now? Blowing up a long running fan favorite show just because you are bored and wished you were on a different sort of show is just stupid. When someone doesn’t want to be running their show anymore, they need to be replaced, not allowed to pull it all down. See GOT. This dude has probably also killed the streaming value of eight frikken seasons with his “I wanna be prestige” tantrum. This show is also one of the last big shows actually filming in LA. Stupid to fuck with people’s bag like this.
There’s another popular drama that’s seemingly doing the same thing to a core couple. I don’t want to say because spoilers but the info is out there on deadline and other sites. And it’s the same bs reason. Shake things up, stakes are high, anyone could die, blah blah. I hate that crap. Just write a solid show. It’s one thing if an actor wants to leave and you really can’t write around them not being there. But when they just fire actors to do it it’s just laziness imo. At least most of the time.
I am done as well, this 9-1-1 really couldn’t afford to lose this character. I have this same deal with Chicago Fire, especially Christopher Herrman. I will not watch one more second if they kill off that character.