Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for 9-1-1 Season 8, Episode 15.This one is not going to be like my other reviews, because I feel like it is important to address the elephant in the room right up front: 9-1-1 just killed off Bobby Nash (Peter Krause), for real. This is not something that I ever thought 9-1-1 would do, because this is just not the show that kills off its main characters. Even with the set leaks that surfaced earlier this month, I still believed that Bobby’s funeral was going to be a fake-out. While watching him die, I believed that he was going to come out of this alive somehow. And then I read the The Hollywood Reporter interview with Tim Minear, and I broke down sobbing for several minutes. I am always upset when a beloved character dies, but it is rare for me to have such a visceral reaction; I genuinely haven’t cried this hard over a fictional character’s death since I read The Fault in Our Stars over a decade ago.
So, we know where this ends, but let’s go back to the beginning. Season 8, Episode 15, “Lab Rats,” picks up right where “Sick Day” left off, continuing with the second half of what has been dubbed “9-1-1: Contagion.” Chimney (Kenneth Choi) is fighting for his life after getting infected with a new version of CCHF with a much shorter incubation period. All hopes of curing him with the antivirus have now been dashed with the revelation that Moira (Bridget Regan), the creator of both the new strain and the antivirus, has fled with it. To make matters worse, the 118 are still stuck inside the lab, while Athena (Angela Bassett) and Buck (Oliver Stark) fight to get them out.
‘9-1-1’ Season 8, Episode 15 Kicks Off With Chimney Fighting for His Life

Image via ABC

In order to fake out the audience, I suppose, this two-parter has moments where it looks like Hen (Aisha Hinds), Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody), and Chimney might all die. Chimney is in the worst shape out of all of them, even though it later turns out that he and Bobby were infected at the exact same time. Then again, Bobby’s exposure came from a hole in his breathing tube, so perhaps the tube slowed it down. Chimney’s death fake out is very sad, but I never actually thought that the show would kill him off. The whole team makes saline from scratch to stop the bleeding in Chimney’s nose, and he has a touching conversation with Maddie that acts as a goodbye.
One scene that has already been recontextualized for me is the one where Chimney asks Bobby to take care of Maddie and the kids for him if he dies. Bobby knows that Chimney is getting the last dose, and that if Chimney dies, he is going with him. Instead of promising to take care of them, Bobby is careful with his words, promising to make sure that nothing bad happens to Chimney’s family. His way of ensuring that is sacrificing his own life to save Chimney’s. Chimney, of course, gets the dose of the antivirus and makes it out alive.
The Episode Brings Together the Heroic Trio of Karen, Buck, and Athena

Image via ABC

Athena and Buck get the antivirus by finding Moira before the FBI and the military can, and by literally getting themselves arrested in order to do so. Athena steals a memory card with photos of Moira’s house on it, and she and Buck ask Karen (Tracie Thoms) to figure out what is on it. There is a line here that made me wonder if 9-1-1 would actually go through with killing Bobby, which is when Athena tells Karen that there is only one dose of antivirus, and Karen expresses relief that only one of them is sick. It turns out that Moira started the fire herself, and that her plan all along was to infect the world with CCHF so that she could sell the antivirus and win a Nobel Prize for inventing the cure. Instead, Moira became the second Bridget Regan villain to kill off one of my favorite characters (or, in Jane the Virgin’s case, to seemingly kill him and instead give him amnesia and fake his death).
Our trio finds Moira, and Athena and Buck end up taking her to a rooftop, where a helicopter lands (and I’m sure you can guess who is flying it). This is one of only two times I’ve ever been happy to see Tommy Kinard (Lou Ferrigno Jr.), and the other was when he helped save Bobby and Athena from the sinking cruise ship. On the helicopter, Tommy and Buck share a moment that is a little friendlier than their last parting, but that is most certainly just closure after the way they ended things. Tommy overall has an oddly significant presence in this episode, and even gets an on-screen reaction to Bobby’s death, but I digress. The helicopter acts as a decoy while Karen and Athena drive to the lab. Athena takes the vial inside and sends it through the hatch to Bobby, who makes sure Chimney gets the dose.
In ‘9-1-1’ Season 8, Episode 15, Bobby Nash Dies – and Thus, So Does the Show

Here’s the thing: if Bobby Nash had to die, this is not the worst way he could have gone out. He keeps his own condition a secret until the last moment, prepared to die alone without anyone knowing, just to save everyone else from getting infected. Buck finds him and tries to save him, but gets a last goodbye where Bobby tells him he loves him, that he’s going to be okay, and that the others will need him. Buck then gets Athena, and she and Bobby have a beautiful goodbye where he says that he doesn’t want to leave her, and that this isn’t his choice. It is a full-circle moment: Bobby started the show planning to end his own life after his book of names was full, and he ends it dying when he doesn’t want to.
So yes, 9-1-1 gave Bobby a decent death scene. I wouldn’t have cried if it had been done badly (looking at you, Yellowjackets adult timeline). The thing is, though, Bobby Nash didn’t have to die. Tim Minear said himself in the previously cited interview that Krause never planned to leave the show, but that Minear wanted the contagion two-parter to end with a death that would heighten the show’s stakes and leave fans worrying about their favorite characters from now on. Well, mission accomplished, I guess, but at what cost? I have watched and loved several high-stakes shows that regularly kill off fan favorites, like Game of Thrones, Grey’s Anatomy, and, of course, Yellowjackets. But 9-1-1 was never supposed to be one of those shows.
I love 9-1-1 precisely because it is funny and soapy, and because it is the kind of show that would rather bring characters back from the dead in outlandish ways than ever even dream of killing them off. Now, though, 9-1-1 has taken a drastic turn. And don’t even get me started on the fact that Eddie (Ryan Guzman) is off in Texas with no idea what has happened, and that Bobby’s last interaction with May (Corinne Massiah) and Harry (Elijah M. Cooper) ended with them being upset with him and Athena for not building rooms for them in the new house. That will never be resolved, and now Athena has to live in her and Bobby’s dream house alone. Ultimately, I am truly heartbroken, but I am also wary. When 9-1-1 returns in two weeks, we will be getting a very different show. Like Bobby Nash, my favorite procedural of all time is dead.
New episodes of 9-1-1 air Thursday nights on ABC.

9-1-1

Release Date

January 3, 2018

Network

ABC, FOX

Showrunner

Tim Minear

Directors

Bradley Buecker, David Grossman, Brenna Malloy, Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Jann Turner, Jennifer Lynch, Marita Grabiak, Sarah Boyd, John J. Gray, Barbara Brown, Robert M. Williams Jr., Kristen Reidel, Marcus Stokes, Tasha Smith, Millicent Shelton, Juan Carlos Coto, John Gray, Greg Sirota, Alonso Alvarez, James Wong, Kevin Hooks, Varda Bar-Kar, Shauna Duggins, Sharat Raju

Writers

Tim Minear, Andrew Meyers, Brad Falchuk, David Fury, Ryan Murphy, Christopher Monfette, Nadia Abass-Madden, Nicole Barraza Keim, Erica L. Anderson, Matthew Hodgson, Stacey R. Rose, Taylor Wong, Tonya Kong, Adam Penn

Pros & Cons

Bobby’s death scene brought him full-circle.

Bobby’s death was a huge mistake, and the ‘9-1-1’ we know and love is gone forever.
Bobby’s last storyline with May and Harry will forever remain unresolved.