I need to write down my thoughts about why the manner in which the show killed off Bobby and the disgraceful retconning it did in the final few episodes makes it so upsetting for me. I don’t care if you disagree with this. I need catharsis after crashing out about this for over a month on Twitter, and getting this off my chest helps me do that. So go away with your “actually…” takes, I’m not interested. Let me grieve the loss of my comfort character, comfort ship, and comfort show in peace.
I’ve been watching this show the same way I watch other procedurals. On again. Off again. In between shows and fandoms, etc. But in January, while trying to come to terms with the disappointing second season of a show I used to truly love and bat for so hard, I started watching 9-1-1 again, picking up from the storyline where Bobby tries to figure out what happened to Wendell.
Having been traumatised to the core as a 13 year old by the menace of a man named Nate Fisher, I immediately gravitated towards Bobby Nash from the get-go. And to see he was having an insane on-screen romance with Angela Bassett was like the perfect recipe for a new brainrot. The fact that in all of its past seasons, the show never killed off a central character despite putting them through the ringer felt like a perfect combination of a high-stakes comfort show.
What I loved best about the show were a few things:
Found family: This is the biggest narrative that drew me in. We don’t get to choose the family we are born into. Still, if we are lucky, along the way, we’ll find people who will bring our second family, the family who’d stand by us without judgment, love us unconditionally, and still hold us accountable. The 118 was, in many ways, a found family of misfits—people who didn’t feel like they fit in, people who didn’t think they deserved to be loved, people who avoided love because they thought they were carrying too much emotional baggage. Every single “[Character] Begins” episode showed us the many ways their loved ones, and society as a whole, failed them, and the scars they’ve carried with them into Fire Station 118. It’s the camaraderie, the clapbacks, the tongue-in-cheek humour that made this found family trope so special. Even during that much-hated Buck lawsuit arc, which I know has split people’s opinions on who was right and who wasn’t, the angst came from the fact that this found family’s dynamics were suddenly off because Buck and Bobby chose to go nuclear in the way they were dealing with things. Yet, at the end of it all, they reconciled, they found their way back to each other. Because that’s what family does; they accept you even when you think you’ve fucked up, and sure it wasn’t an easy reconcilation either, but there was reconciliation anyway.
Second chances: This is the bit that makes the recent travesty of episodes hurt so much. Bobby and Athena both represented second chances in very different ways. Athena’s shot at happiness was snatched from her so early in life, and then she endured a loveless 15-year marriage, which she couldn’t leave because of her kids. And when she did find the courage to walk away, she worried about what people would say—that she had failed as a wife? That she couldn’t save her marriage? Yet, we saw both Athena and Michael decide together that they needed to walk away from their marriage to find happiness, which they both deserved. Bobby was Athena’s second chance, and we spent 8 seasons watching her come out of her shell, become the person she would’ve been had Emmett not been taken from her. That too, she found her authentic self at 50, is essential because we are constantly pushed to believe that love, marriage, and raising a family have an expiration date. Well, Athena and her blended family, comprising her husband, her kids, her ex-husband and his boyfriend, laughed in the face of that stereotype, and it was delightful to watch. I treasure that one episode of Michael, Bobby and David teaming up to expose the shady neighbour, and while Athena wanted to throttle all three of them, unfortunately, they turned out to be right, so they probably didn’t learn the lesson she was hoping to impart lol.
For Bobby, a second chance looks so very different. Minnesota was his personal hellscape (more on why the burial site upset me so much later), and after the fire, he had left to find penance, which eventually brought him to LA. But season 1 was very intentional in telling us two fundamental things about Bobby: a) he was actively suicidal and the only thing that was holding him back was his penance; b) he chose to live on the same night Athena had agreed to go on a dinner date with him. He chose Athena. He chose life. That was made clear by the end of season 1, very explicitly. And the subsequent seasons continued to build on it; we watched him rebuild everything he had lost in Minnesota: a family comprising Athena, May, Harry, and the 118. A team that loved and respected him and was prepared to follow him into burning buildings, despite knowing his past, the same way his team in Minnesota was no longer willing to. He also found a healthier outlook on his faith. It was no longer a quid pro quo relationship with God, where he saved 148 lives and then got permission from God to take his own life to join his dead family. I am not religious, but there was something profoundly beautiful in the way he navigated his faith, without ever preaching, and used his faith to bring himself comfort. It was part of his healing journey, and lastly, most importantly, he started helping people like him, who were just as lost, who were struggling to break free of their addiction cycle. He sponsored AA meetings, shared his experiences, and did the community work consistently.
Interpersonal connection: The interpersonal connections between the main characters were beautiful. Whether it’s Chim trying to woo Maddie, or Buck and Athena having the most hilarious work mom-work son relation, to the 118 making fun of Bobby’s dating profile or digging up his baby ice skating photos, etc, the interpersonal relations made the show come to life. Because at the end of the day, firefighters are not emotional machines and robots. They are human, they have feelings, they care about each other, their relationship with one another is built on trust that is almost sacred, because how else would you be confident that your teammate is always going to watch your six so you can go home at the end of your shift? Like that one episode where Chim’s girlfriend broke up with him, and Hen said she has permission to hold a grudge against her until the day she dies. Or Hen spilling Bobby and Athena’s freaky date night to the entire team and them having a laugh about it – these were all very beautiful instances of camaraderie that made the show a source of comfort.
All of these things were mostly gone in S7 and non-existent in S8. While I loved the Bathena cruise ship arc and how it brought the two of them closer, ultimately, I found the entire season lacking, albeit the episodes were cut down due to the strikes. Season 8 felt so disjointed that every week felt like watching a different show altogether. Or an alternate version of the show. Because what do you mean the 118 simply forgot Hen’s birthday? Hen, who has been an OG team member? Hen, whom Bobby gave a key to his apartment in case he didn’t make it back home by the FOURTH episode of the first season? Hen, whose prospective departure to become a medical doctor upset Chimney so much that he was acting weird towards her over multiple episodes???? Karen, the LOVE OF HEN’S LIFE, would simply forget her wife’s birthday? Denny would forget her mom’s birthday? I know 9-1-1 is 80% about a suspension of disbelief, but this felt entirely too much.
Now speaking about this whole main character death arc—I am not opposed to one IF it is in the best interest of the show. If the show had become stale, if the ratings were falling, I would’ve been on board with it because tragedy sometimes reinvigorates storytelling. However, I cannot fathom either the timing or the manner in which this was done. The show had been getting record views and ratings; the Beenado episode is one of their highest-rated episodes ever. So I don’t understand what compelled Tim Minear to suddenly want not only a main character death, but THE main character death.
Granted, okay fine, you want to do it, Peter Krause is on board, the network is on board, etc. Then you must plan an entire season around it. You have to signpost from the start of the season that this character will die by the end of it. You cannot waste time doing a show within a show and expect people to suddenly pick up your little hints about what you’re about to do to Bobby, especially after Season 7 ended with him saying goodbye to everyone and then actually dying for 14 minutes. 7x10 was the perfect moment for Bobby to have died because no one could foresee a heart attack, and his death would’ve been so incredibly symbolic and meaningful because his biggest regret in life was not being able to first save Tim Nash, then Marcy/Brooke/Robbie. But going out while saving Athena, his wife, his second chance at life, the last great love of his life? That would’ve been the right moment to bring his story to a close. Athena would still have had to navigate being a widow and having to bury the love of her life for a second time; the 118 would still have had to navigate the loss of their patriarch, but Bobby would’ve gone out as a big damn hero. It would’ve brought his story full circle that he died saving someone he deeply loved when all his life he carried the regret of not being able to save other people whom he loved just as much.
The Contagion arc was stupid, full of plot holes and unbelievable scenarios that are excessive even by 9-1-1’s standards. What followed today was somehow worse. I still do not get the need to use the dead child/grieving mother trope as a way to show Athena’s denial and eventual acceptance of Bobby’s passing. For a show that had always excelled at interpersonal connection, they could’ve brought Athena to this realisation in any different ways that also involved the other people whose lives Bobby had a tremendous impact on. The fact that they cut out the scene where Beatrice and Ann console Athena is criminal. Beatrice, who always foresaw that this relationship would end in Athena’s heart breaking all over again, yet that same Beatrice who had come to accept Bobby as her son-in-law because she saw how he defended Athena as if it were an instinctive reaction. Or the fact that Ann finally got to reconcile with her baby bo,y who blamed her for her husband’s death for all these years, and yet we didn’t see her reaction to losing her son. Or the fact Charlie lost his baby brother, and after devoting his entire adult life to his terminally ill mother, sacrificing two marriages in the process, he was about to be utterly alone after Ann dies.
I can understand the show probably saving Buck, Eddie, Hen, and Ravi’s grief for the final two episodes, but Bobby had other relationships, too. What about May and Harry? Why did Athena break the news to them that their dad was dead off-screen? What about all the people Bobby helped at AA? What about the hot priest to whom he confessed his guilt early in the show? You’d think for a farewell funeral episode, all of the lives Bobby had impacted for the better would be shown or at least acknowledged? It wasn’t. I’m glad we got to see Angela Bassett and Kenny Choi shine with how palpable Athena and Chim’s grief was, but the episode feels so hollow. There is no catharsis offered; no closure given.
Now, the bit about choosing to bury Bobby in Minnesota. I get that people think it gives him closure, but it fundamentally does not. In season 1, Bobby tells Chim very explicitly that he will see his kids again after he dies, meaning in the afterlife. He is already there. He is with his kids. To bury Bobby all the way in Minnesota takes away from everyone whose lives he had impacted in LA, which may have begun as his penance, but it turned into his home by the end. A place where he healed, where he built his found family, and where he thrived. By contrast, Minnesota offered him only pain: His family broke apart when Ann left with Charlie. He couldn’t save his father. He started drinking there. He broke his back, which led him down the spiralling path of addiction. He couldn’t save Marcy and the kids. And yet, that’s where he is buried—a place where his found family cannot go to at the drop of a hat. If Buck has a rough shift and wants to go sit by his grave to find comfort, we won’t get that. We’ve seen earlier in S8 how needy the 118 is, to the point they showed up at Bobby’s door every time they had an issue. Eddie had problems with Christopher? Go to Bobby. Buck is creeped out by Gerrard? Go to Bobby. You get the picture.
In that case, why wouldn’t they have Bobby buried in LA so that we can see the 118 do this in Season 9? Tim said he wanted to shake things up so that Bobby’s death would affect the 118 beyond just this season, so, why not write this into continuity? Plus, Bobby being buried in Minnesota also erases all physical reminders of his life in LA. Already, the house fire at the end of S7 took away most of the physical things he had collected since moving to LA, and now even his final resting place is several states away.
I needed to write these thoughts down because I feel emotionally exhausted. I invested in the show because it offered comfort, hope, and the message that you’re never too old, never too broken, and never too jaded to find love once you get out of your way. Every single character had been broken by life in one way or another, and they healed in each other’s company, because the found family gave them unconditional love and the room to get better. All that’s gone now. Big emotional beats and moments are being done off-screen, character arcs are being reversed, relationships that people drew comfort from are being undone…all for what, I do not know. But I needed to mourn the loss of the comfort that the show once brought me.
I don't even have the strength to talk about Bathena more in depth, only that they deserved to grow old together. They deserved to be in their new dream home together, living out their golden years in peace, surrounded by their kids, their blended family and their found family from fire station 118. They deserved the world.
I am going to miss peter krause, even if he torments me every other decade — thank god for Benjamin Jones and Adam Braverman. Please someone put him in a comedy next I cannot do another show where his character dies again. And I hope Angela Bassett wins the Emmy for that one scene that had me curled into a fetal position and sobbing because the way Athena's grief and heartbreak poured out in different forms was chef's kiss. I will miss my weekly TV mom and dad who have made me feel comforted all this while.
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