Observe: This story comprises spoilers from “9-1-1” Season 9, Episode 13.
“9-1-1” thrives when it deviates from its method in alternate for a really tense, character-focused episode, because it does on this week’s installment spotlighting Buck and Eddie.
Episode 13, titled “Mom’s Boy,” adopted the aftermath of final week’s “9-1-1” crossover occasion in Nashville. After their flight confronted huge delays, Buck (Oliver Stark) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) opted to lease a automotive and drive again to Los Angeles as an alternative. After all, the highway journey took a horrific flip after a detour off the freeway landed them in a small city that wasn’t too welcoming — ending with the duo in a critical automotive accident that left Eddie within the hospital and Buck held captive by a deranged waitress.
“The Buckleys appear to be kidnap fodder,” sequence creator Tim Minear advised TheWrap. “I all the time love these stripped down, tightly centered character tales that are usually thrillers. They’re all the time my favourite episodes.”
Minear wrote the action-packed episode, which was directed by his longtime good friend and collaborator Jonathan Lawrence. The showrunner mentioned he relished the chance to work alongside Lawrence on the stunt-heavy hour, which made him reminisce of their occasions making Tremendous 8 quick movies collectively rising up.
Past the massive automotive stunts and thriller-worthy moments — together with Eddie evading the city’s sheriff so he might seek for Buck — the episode allowed for the beloved kidnapped firefighter to come back to phrases together with his struggles with grief because the lack of Capt. Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) final season.
Seems the waitress and her cook dinner husband, who encountered the firefighters once they stopped on the diner the place they labored, orchestrated his kidnapping as some type of twisted coping mechanism for the lack of their very own son, who bore a surprising resemblance to Buck and ended up mind lifeless after a bike accident.
Minear mentioned Buck admitting his personal struggles with grief to his captors allowed him to start out coming to phrases together with his emotions — one thing he’s been fighting all through Season 9.
“This was the episode the place I actually wished to have him say one thing — not an excessive amount of,” Minear mentioned. “Him saying, ‘I misplaced any individual and he’s not round anymore, and typically I don’t know who I’m due to that.’ That was the guts of it for Buck.”
It’s a part of the throughline for Season 9, which has seen every member of the 118, in addition to Bobby’s spouse Athena (Angela Bassett) and her children, come to phrases with the lack of one among their very own.
And in contrast to among the different large moments in “9-1-1” historical past, the trauma from this episode received’t simply go away. Minear teased the aftermath of this hellish highway journey will influence Buck in subsequent episodes.
That ought to lead into no matter different craziness is in retailer for the “9-1-1” group as they wrap up Season 9, which additionally comes after receiving a Season 10 renewal at ABC together with a second season for its “9-1-1: Nashville” spinoff.
“There’s little easter eggs which were planted all through the season and there’s some large twists arising,” Minear mentioned. “I don’t even know tease them to you with out giving them away, so I’m not going to.”
“9-1-1” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and streams the following day on Hulu.
