I’m afraid I was misled about the bees. When promised a three-episode bee-nado, I expected to see a lot of stinging insects throughout. Instead, the second episode of 9-1-1’s eighth season—the Empire Strikes Back chapter of the bee-nado—didn’t feature a single bee. The bees were merely the inciting incident of the plane crash that took up much of the perfectly titled “When the Boeing Gets Tough.” Maybe I was wrong to assume that the hive would return with a vengeance, but it was hard not to feel a little disappointed. I’m Patricia Arquette in Boyhood saying, “I just thought there would be more,” in this case specifically referring to the bees.
I’ll get my disappointment out of the way up front, because this episode is actually an improvement over the season premiere, offering a more tightly focused story that gives Angela Bassett room to shine. We’re on the plane from the very beginning, though we start just before Athena and Dennis Jenkins board, taking the time to introduce all the characters we need to know: Tia and her man-hating dog, businessman Jordan, the plane-obsessed prodigy Jim and his dad, an older couple meeting their newborn grandchild, and, of course, the girls’ volleyball team. (As a superstitious person with a severe fear of flying, I’m always looking for excuses not to get on a plane, but in a post-Yellowjackets world, if I see teenage girls in uniform on my flight, I’m running.) Now that 9-1-1 has introduced us to the passengers who will either be critically injured or helping those who are critically injured, the show cuts to just before the midair collision. Jenkins explains why the creepy men are after him: The U.S. Attorney’s Office actually transferred him to another prison for the express purpose of getting him close to Maxwell “Schmeffrey Schmepstein” Fulton, who eventually revealed the location of his incriminating library. Fulton also warns Jenkins that there are people who will stop at nothing to get his little black book, but Jenkins is still willing to share his intel. In fact, he’ll cooperate with the U.S. Attorney’s Office without the promised early release—unless Athena forgives him for killing her fiancé. It’s an interesting, albeit somewhat trivial, moral dilemma for her (Jenkins will reveal it anyway), but before she can think it through, the bee-infested pilot from the season premiere crashes their plane. The smaller plane ripped two large holes in the plane. The first, in the cockpit, met the pilot high and out of the sky (RIP), while the second, in the back of the plane, just made for a very stressful experience for the passengers. Fortunately, both holes were quickly (albeit temporarily) plugged with debris, so no one else flew away. The co-pilot was also seriously injured, but he was able to stabilize the plane before passing out. Athena went to the cockpit, where she soon discovered that the radio was broken, so she did the only sensible thing that was also the title of the show—she called 9-1-1 on her cell phone. (I’d love to know what airline she was flying.) Josh got the call and transferred Athena to air traffic control, who were very good at keeping their cool while privately wondering if they needed to evacuate the entire airport. The plane is on autopilot and air traffic control is clearing the airspace around them, so they’ll be fine for a minute—but as a flight attendant tells Athena, there are a lot of injured passengers and, let’s not forget, a big hole in the plane. (That’s the last thing Boeing needs.) Together they move the passengers out of harm’s way, and Athena gives a rousing speech over the intercom. It’s a great performance from Bassett, who brings real gravitas to even the most absurd situations. She’s a big part of why 9-1-1 works so well, because she’s always committed to taking the absurd seriously.
But the show also works because it’s an ensemble, and this episode manages to get (almost) everyone else involved. The 118 is still reeling from Buck taking Gerrard down and saving him from the chainsaw. While the captain is in the hospital for medical treatment, Hen is in charge—and they all have work to do. Maddie calls and tells the station that she’s patching up the passengers on Athena’s flight so that firefighters can help triage the injured from 30,000 feet away. It’s a very clever way to keep 118 running, and so I’m willing to suspend my disbelief about all the cell phones on the plane.
While there are clearly multiple injuries, we’re really only focusing on two cases. The first is one of the girls playing volleyball, who
