Remember last season, when Bobby and Athena nearly died in each other’s arms as their sinking cruise ship filled with water? At the time, we didn’t think 9-1-1 could come up with a more heartbreaking moment for the beloved couple. Silly us.
Thursday’s episode, a continuation of the first three episodes of Season 8, was basically just Angela Bassett starring in her own ’90s action movie. It was great. Honestly, it’s everything we want from this show right now. Immediately after last week’s midair collision, Athena is forced to land a half-destroyed plane full of injured passengers, with only one real kid serving as co-pilot.
Worried that Athena and her extremely young companion might not be able to land the plane, Dennis suggests they contact someone on the ground to share the information he has on known pedophile Maxwell Fulton. (Yes, let’s not forget that 9-1-1 is throwing a Jeffrey Epstein-inspired plot into the middle of this, after all.) Athena only shares that kind of information with someone she trusts completely, a list that begins and ends with one name — Bobby Nash.
Alas, Bobby can’t be reached, forcing Athena to leave him the most heartbreaking voice message imaginable. The kind Savannah Guthrie warned viewers about before airing it on the Today show. Yes, we’re talking about the creepy goodbye voice message to a crashing plane.
“Bobby!” Athena screams over the sound of air being sucked out of the spacecraft. “I love you, baby!” (No, he was crying.) In fact, the only thing more painful than watching her leave a voicemail was watching Bobby finally hear it at the end of the episode. The Hotshots really need to reconsider their no-phones-on-set policy.
Come to think of it, didn’t Bobby and Athena have a near-drowning experience in the second episode of last season? Did we just discover 9-1-1’s secret recipe for emotional devastation? #LeaveBobbyAndAthenaAlone Elsewhere in Season 2… * Bad news: Gerrard survived the fall. Good news: He was taken to the hospital with a suspected concussion, leaving Hen temporarily in charge of 118. Unfortunately, Buck’s combination of guilt and fear kept him from joining the other firefighters at a dance party, despite official orders.
* While the flashback to Emmett’s funeral was sad, do you wish it had been longer so we could spend more time with Pepi Sonuga as young Athena? We’ve forgotten how good she is.
* Can we just take a moment to appreciate that this very serious episode about a plane crash is called “When the Boeing Gets Tough”?
What did you think of Season 2? Rate the episode in our poll below, then leave a comment about your hopes for next week’s finale.
