Showrunner Tim Minear, the co-creator of the 9-1-1 franchise, along with Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, has done a few interviews to explain his decision to kill off Captain Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) at the end of “Lab Rats.” His reasoning essentially boils down to a sense that he needed to shock the audience, to inject a sense of life-threatening danger into the catastrophes that the 118 can face, to make them second-guess themselves a little bit more the next time a fan-favorite main character is at death’s door.
I don’t know if Minear is right to kill off Bobby. That depends entirely on how the show changes, or doesn’t, heading into season 9. But he is right to say that the audience needed to be shocked. Even as the filming of Bobby’s funeral surfaced online, the general response from many viewers was that there had to be some sort of twist that would allow for the 118’s leader to still be alive.
Even just last week, in the review for the episode “Sick Day”, I was dismissive of the idea that anything would happen that would fundamentally change what 9-1-1 is. In fairness, as the saying goes, shows teach you how to watch them. Up to this point, 9-1-1 has taught us that its main characters are indestructible.
9-1-1 Wraps Its Two-Parter Before Bobby’s Farewell. It’s An Improvement Over Last Week Before it can get into the business of shocking the audience, “Lab Rats” has to go through the motions of addressing last week’s cliffhanger. Dr. Moira Blake (Bridget Regan) has the anti-viral, which is the only thing that could save the infected Howard (Kenneth Choi), albeit Athena (Angela Bassett) and Buck (Oliver Stark) are able to find her easily enough. Moira wants to sell the cure to a pharmaceutical company, making millions and becoming a hero for solving the global pandemic that she created. The executive she makes this pitch to pretends to be interested long enough for Athena and Buck to arrive and apprehend Moira.
It’s a bit more lively than the first half of the two-parter. Athena and Buck have to dodge the FBI, who would rather let everyone trapped in the lab die, while also looking for Moira. It is also amusing to see Athena, who can be so infuriatingly pro-law enforcement, break just about every law when she feels like it. At one point, they turn to Karen (Tracie Thoms) for help in learning about Moira. At another, Tommy (Lou Ferrigno Jr.) cameos to offer an assist with evading the feds. In the end, Howard receives the cure. He’s saved.
Tommy’s reappearance, in which he says that he helped out for both Buck and Chimney, could be bad news for the Buddie hopes that have quieted in the last few episodes. I did like that they didn’t have either side apologize for their respective outbursts the last time they saw each other in “Holy Mother Of God.” They clearly meant what they said on some level, and it’ll be interesting to see how Tommy responds to the coming reunion between Buck and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) since all three will be around for Bobby’s funeral and the aftermath.
The only glaring issue with this part of the episode, besides the utter reality of Athena and Buck facing zero blowback for their actions, has to do with Moira herself. “Lab Rats” can’t dispense with its central villain fast enough, with the microbiologist seeming indifferent to the fact that she’ll spend the rest of her life behind bars. It can be forgiven, in this case, since there are more important things in the episode. But it’s the second time in just weeks, after Abigail Spencer’s Detective Braeburn, that 9-1-1 introduced an intriguing antagonist in the first half only to drop the ball later.
