Fans of 9-1-1 waited a long time for the return of Season 8, and boy, has it delivered.
Sure, it may have only been a few months, but the 118, dispatch, and Athena are family, and every month without them can be tough to handle!
9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 11 was another enjoyable and emotional hour of the series, which dove even deeper into Bobby’s sad history and had Buck struggling with Eddie’s departure and what that meant for him.
It was an hour with action, heart, and wonderful character studies, and an hour this big deserved a deep dive with showrunner Tim Minear, who shaded in some of the headier parts of what will undoubtedly be a thought-provoking hour.
9-1-1 Season 7 Episode 8 gave us a real taste of Bobby’s childhood via flashbacks, at which point we were introduced to Bobby’s family and the events leading up to his father, Tim Nash’s death.
We met Ann and Charlie via those flashbacks, but the crux of that story was Bobby’s relationship with his father. This left us wondering what happened to his mother and brother and what, if any, relationship they may have with present-day Bobby.
We got our answer in this hour when Bobby and the 118 responded to a call at a megachurch, where its patrons were experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning.
On that call, Bobby was reunited with his estranged mother, Ann, and brother, Charlie, which kicked off a cathartic journey for him as he dealt with many of what he thought were long-buried emotions.
The flashbacks during 9-1-1 Season 7 sparked this storyline as Minear told us, “I think initially when we did the flashbacks, that’s introducing some new information for us.
“So I always felt like there was probably some gold to mine there. Because okay, yeah, he had a mother. Oh, look, he had a brother.
“But then I think it was really after seeing the episodes with Malcolm Jamal Warner that contained those flashbacks that I was interested in seeing a little bit more about what happened to Bobby after that incident where his father died. Like, what did happen to his mother?
“I was just as curious as the audience. So it was this year when I kinda landed on the idea. And then I just thought, ‘Well, what’s the most interesting thing for Bobby’s mother to be?’
“I’m sort of obsessed with this faith healer from the sixties and seventies named Katherine Kuhlman, and I sort of based her on Katherine Kuhlman.”
Bobby spent much of the hour still harboring a lot of anger toward his mother and the events of the past, which led to a confrontation between the pair where Bobby told Ann that she was a fraud of a mother.
When Anna collapsed during one of her services, Bobby discovered that Ann had terminal cancer, and the two were able to freely talk to one another and apologize while Ann was in the hospital.
So often, in Bobby’s stories involving his past, we see him looking to forgive himself, but in this instance, he was extending forgiveness to his mother, which was an interesting dichotomy.
“I think for Bobby, what he has to forgive her for is not dying; it’s going on. And not only just going on, but flourishing and sort of self-actualizing,” Minear shared.
“Whether or not he believes that she really does what she claims to do, it’s the fact that she found a purpose and fulfillment and that that could only happen once she was free of his dad.
“He’s resented her for that all this time and may use the idea that he doesn’t really vibe with her brand of religion as an excuse to resent her.
Forgiving his mother will close a chapter for Bobby, as Minear explained, “I think it’s closing a loop for him. I think the thing that’s always interesting to me about Bobby is that, particularly with his life in L.A., he feels a little bit like an outsider.
“Whether it’s, you know, on the outside of the family with Athena and her kids or on the outside of the 118 to start. Or with the ledger. ‘I’m going to fix the ledger. I’m gonna save a certain number of people, and then I’m done with life.’
“So him forgiving his mother and kind of reconnecting with his brother just kind of reaffirms that he has tethers in this world.”
While Bobby certainly does have tethers, the same could be said for Buck, who had a strong tether to Eddie, even though the man had officially moved to El Paso, Texas, at the end of 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 10.
Having decided to sublet Eddie’s home in Los Angeles, Buck’s belongings were delivered, but he found himself struggling to unpack and ingratiate himself into this new/old environment.
Ever-patient sister Maddie suggested that Buck make some new friends, which led Buck to a night out with Ravi and a run-in with his most recent ex, Tommy.
When we previously talked to Minear after 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 7, he mentioned that “Tommy is in Buck’s romantic past for sure. But that doesn’t mean that Tommy is necessarily not ever going to intersect with Buck in this universe again.”
The two certainly intersected here when they engaged in a hookup after reconnecting at the bar.
When asked why it felt like the time to bring Tommy back now, Minear stated, “It just felt like it’s what the story wanted, you know? First of all, Buck decides to take over Eddie’s lease to help Eddie out.
“But he’s finding that moving into that house is just a constant reminder of the thing that he lost, his best friend. And so, he’s doing everything he can to fill the space that is left with him.
“And it just felt like a real thing to me. You’re feeling untethered, you’re feeling unmoored, you’re feeling lonely, you’re feeling anxious, you run into an ex. There might be some chemistry there.
“You’re trying to kind of recapture some past glory, but kind of falling into bed with an ex? That just felt like, well, he’s definitely in the kind of emotional space where that makes a lot of sense to me.”
The morning after the hookup, Tommy made Buck breakfast before broaching the topic of them potentially starting over again or, at the very least, moving things beyond just that one night.
But when Tommy revealed that he felt more comfortable trying again with Buck because the competition, aka Eddie, was out of the way, things took a turn.
“I believe that that’s what Tommy would say in that situation. Whether he has a point or not, you know your mileage may vary on that,” Minear said when asked about the shift in the story and the decision to bring Eddie into the conversation.
“But if I’m Tommy, I’m like, ‘Well, you sure spent a lot of time with your good-looking best friend, and now you’ve moved into his house, and I think we need to discuss that.’ It makes a lot of sense for Tommy to at least question it or feel a little bit threatened.
But threatened by what exactly? What exactly was he competing with Eddie for?
Was it Buck’s time or attention? Or a whole myriad of things?
Minear was direct when asked those very questions, telling us, “Well, look, I think it’s pretty clear Tommy is flat out accusing Buck of being in love with Eddie. I’ll just leave it there.”
The accusation did not sit well with Buck, who later told Maddie about the conversation. After ascertaining that he was not in love with Eddie, he admitted that he’d used his ex and would apologize to him.
That apology does not occur on-screen, but Minear told us that we should expect Buck to begin learning the lesson Maddie brought up — the one about being alone.
“That’s where that scene goes, right? It’s Maddie saying, ‘You need to learn that lesson again.’
“And it’s clear in that scene that as much as it kind of threw him for a loop when Tommy just cut things off, Buck realizes that it’s not fair to use other people as a stopgap measure to make you feel better about something that’s bothering you.
“He was using Tommy a little bit, and Tommy was using him in that moment. They’re consenting adults. That’s a fun way to use people.”
As for the Buck and Eddie of it all moving forward, while Minear said we will “for sure” see the pair interacting in the near future, he also gave us a taste of what to expect now that Eddie has returned home to Texas.
“You’ll see him in the next episode. I’m picking up his story in El Paso. And you know, things are tight. You’re probably looking at the timeline going, ‘Wait now. What, what? How much time has passed?’
“But the idea for me was the last scene of Episode 10, where they’re packing up, that’s a few weeks after Maddie has been recovered and in the hospital.
“Then Eddie had told Bobby that he needed about three weeks or a month to find somebody to take over the house, but also for escrow to close on the house.
“So, when we pick up with Eddie, he’s been there two or three weeks into his El Paso life. I didn’t want to pick it up too late because I didn’t want you to feel like you were missing anything. So you’ll see what his situation is in El Paso and what he’s dealing with.
“Like, what is his story with trying to reconnect with his kid?”
Eddie’s much-anticipated Texas storyline will be just one of the things we should look forward to as the season progresses and barrels toward its inevitable end.
Minear was quick to tell us, “We’ll definitely see some fallout from Maddie’s ordeal like that’s not just going away. You’ll see that soon. You’re going to see Eddie, and we already talked about that, but we’re going to see Eddie’s journey in El Paso.
“Then there’s going to be a terrific Hen episode coming up in Episode 13, and then 14 and 15 are a banger of a two-parter. Then, we’ll see what happens after that. I’d love to give it away to you, but we’re still working on it.”
We’d love to hear it all as well, but it sounds like there is much to look forward to as the season continues onward.
We’ve edited this interview for length and clarity.
There’s much to discuss after this hour and much to discuss after this interview.
What are you looking forward to seeing the rest of this season?
Hit the comments below with all your thoughts!
You can watch 9-1-1 on ABC at 8/7c on Thursdays.
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