Entertainment
‘9-1-1’ Only Has 1 Storyline That’s Actually Been Good This Season
Despite a promising start, Season 9 of 9-1-1 has been a disappointment so far. Like usual, the season started with a wild opening emergency. Unlike usual, though, the first half of Season 9 has not had much else going on beyond the space crisis. There were four episodes dedicated to Hen (Aisha Hinds) and Athena (Angela Bassett) going to space and trying to get back in the middle of a geomagnetic storm. Since then, 9-1-1 had only two regular episodes before its hiatus, and neither one of them did much to move the main storylines along.
9-1-1 Season 9 is the first season since the death of Bobby Nash (Peter Krause), and the show has yet to get back on track after this major change. Most of the characters’ personal storylines so far this season have been related to their grief over Bobby, and then there have been bizarre storylines like the death of Eddie’s (Ryan Guzman) Abuela (Ana Mercedes), and Hen’s sudden, mysterious illness. The ABC procedural has only had one good new storyline this season, and that is Harry’s (Elijah M. Cooper) decision to become a firefighter.
Harry’s Firefighting Storyline Is the Best New Addition to ‘9-1-1’ Season 9
Ever since it was announced that May (Corinne Massiah) and Harry would have more significant roles in Season 9, it seemed likely that they would somehow become more involved in the world of first responders. May hasn’t yet had much to do in Season 9, so it’s unclear yet whether she will return to dispatch or whether she will possibly end up becoming a paramedic. Harry, on the other hand, has had a really compelling arc this season. He was initially lost and angry about Bobby’s death and Athena’s distance, and had dropped out of high school without telling Athena. When Buck (Oliver Stark) invited Harry to join the 118 on calls as a distraction from Athena’s dangerous space trip, though, Harry unexpectedly found his calling.
Second only to Athena, Harry has gotten the most developed arc of 9-1-1 Season 9 so far. The season has shown him taking an interest in firefighting, working to get Athena to come around to the idea, and then asking Buck to help him train to get into the firefighting academy. Through this journey of working to become a first responder, Harry has opened up to Athena more about what he’s feeling, and he’s also found a new path forward after dropping out of high school. In the mid-season finale, Harry almost gave up on firefighting after his criminal record came out, but Buck encouraged him to push forward, and Harry finally forgave himself for his past arrest. Harry has come so far this season, and it feels fitting for his character arc, and right that, instead of bringing in someone new right now, the 118 would welcome in another familiar face in Bobby’s absence.
‘9-1-1’ Needs to Give More Focus to Personal Storylines When It Returns
While Harry’s storyline this season has been strong, 9-1-1 has been failing its other main characters in Season 9. Athena had a beautiful storyline in the season’s fourth episode about working through her grief both past and present. Aside from this, though, 9-1-1 Season 9 hasn’t had much notable character development outside of its major space emergency. 9-1-1‘s emergencies are certainly an important part of the show, but the heart of the series has always been the first responders. Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) hasn’t had any storylines of her own this season, and what little 9-1-1 has shown of the 118 is mostly focused on their calls. Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody) has only really gotten to be a supporting character for Buck’s storylines, and Buck only got one substantial episode, which was mostly about his grief. Additionally, Hen’s main storyline was about the space disaster, and Eddie had one interesting storyline about his religion that got derailed by his Abuela’s death.
Aside from an unusually short first half of the season, 9-1-1 Season 9’s main issue is that Bobby’s death has changed the show on a fundamental level. To have the characters go back to normal from here would do a disservice to their relationships with Bobby, but nearly every personal storyline this season has been related to everyone’s grief over losing Bobby. 9-1-1 still has so many open threads to revisit, and it has been ignoring important dynamics all season. Buck and Eddie have barely interacted all season, and when they do, they don’t act like best friends. Maddie suffered from postpartum depression and thyroiditis the first time she gave birth, and it affected her entire arc in Season 5. Choosing to give birth again was huge for Maddie, yet 9-1-1 hasn’t checked in on how she’s feeling at all since baby Bobby Nash Han was born.
When 9-1-1 returns from its mid-season hiatus, it needs to give more focus to the main characters’ personal storylines when they’re not dealing with life-and-death stakes. 9-1-1 needs to show the 118 acting like a family again, both at work and outside of it. The show should return to the storylines that it abandoned after Bobby’s death, and it needs to let its characters be silly with each other and have fun together again. As it stands, aside from the flashy space emergency, Eddie’s Abuela’s death, and Harry joining the 118, Season 9 of 9-1-1 has just not made much of an impression yet.
9-1-1 will return to ABC on Thursday, January 8 at 8:00 P.M. EST.
- Release Date
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January 3, 2018
- Showrunner
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Tim Minear
- Directors
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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
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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
