RECAP: ‘9-1-1’ Season 8 Episode 11 — “Holy Mother of God”

Well, well, well. It actually happened. 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 11, “Holy Mother of God,” brings some things into focus when Tommy (Lou Ferrigno Jr) returns while Buck (Oliver Stark) struggles with his move. First-time director Aisha Hinds, who plays Hen Wilson, delivers a fantastic first showing behind the camera. And more Bobby (Peter Krause) lore gives another peek into his childhood that was set up during 9-1-1 Season 7.

“Holy Mother of God” is hands down one of the more cinematic episodes of the show, bar none. From the megachurch chaos to the high ladder rescue, 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 11 almost operates on a high stakes finale type vibe. But even the smaller, more intimate scenes also pop on screen. Paired with director of photography Andrew Mitchell, this episode has a very cinematic feel to it, not just in the grand scale emergencies but in the way the characters move and flow across the screen. Nothing feels static; there’s electricity to the story’s movement that hasn’t been present as of late.

The primary emergency involves carbon monoxide poisoning at a megachurch, where a faith healer named Anne is preaching. This woman, played by Leslie Ann Warren, is Bobby’s mother. 9-1-1 Season 7 introduced more backstory for Bobby regarding a rough childhood with an alcoholic father. His mother and brother haven’t played a significant role in that story until now.

This Bobby-centric plot allowed for a stand-out Peter Krause performance and a sneak peek into Bobby and Athena’s (Angela Bassett) house build. However, it did feel like a pile-on of trauma for Bobby and didn’t necessarily provide a satisfactory conclusion. Anne collapses during one of her sermons after a few heated arguments with Bobby. At the hospital, it’s revealed that Anne has stage 4 cancer. There’s no real indication that Anne is sticking around Los Angeles, though, making some of these emotional breakthroughs a bit cheap, especially considering the status of Bobby’s mother and brother were previously unknown until this episode.

9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 11 delivers character-driven drama. 

Buck’s lingering sadness about his best friend moving continues as he struggles to unpack or even sleep in his house now that Eddie has left. He spends a lot of nights on Maddie’s (Jennifer Love Hewitt) couch. A short scene between the two reveals a still healing scar on Maddie’s neck left over from the kidnapping, but some time has definitely passed. Still, she’s glad she has Chimney (Kenneth Choi) and Buck around to keep her company. But she does suggest to Buck that he needs to make new friends.

Enter Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody). Poor, poor, Ravi, who’s also finally back after way too much time away. Buck tries to recreate the friendship he had with Eddie through Ravi, but Ravi sees right through Buck. Still, he agrees to go out for drinks.

Pisharody is back in fine form as Ravi, the occasional 118 A-shift member who’s been around since 9-1-1 Season 4. He’s clearly not having it with Buck this entire episode and finds a solution to escape his co-worker’s woes. While Pisharody does not have much to do in the episode, his comedic timing and annoyance with the 118 prove Ravi needs more screen time away from Buck and a backstory. Bring on, Ravi-centric episodes, please.

Ravi’s solution to escape a social situation he did not want to be in with Buck forms when he spots none other than Tommy Kinard at the same bar. After their heartbreaking breakup in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 6, Tommy and Buck are reunited by Ravi in a very “he’s your problem now” hand-off. This reunion has been a long time coming despite the breakup only happening five episodes ago. But Buck’s pining in the form of baking as a distraction from calling Tommy has kept this thread alive and well.

Ferrigno Jr and Stark turn up the chemistry to max 100 for this reunion. Once Tommy sits at the table, their catch-up quickly turns flirty and cuts to them making out and stumbling through the darkened hallways of Buck’s new house, crashing into walls and doors, laughing. It’s a level of intimacy not yet shown between them despite two kiss scenes in 9-1-1 Season 7. The chemistry continues the following day in the kitchen, where Tommy makes Buck breakfast and suggests getting back together. These exchanges are filled with flirtatious moments, but as soon as the real questions start being asked, it’s 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 6 all over again.

Buck grapples with people’s assumptions. 

This is what’s great about the Buck and Tommy relationship, though. They’re stuck in a loop of miscommunication and assumptions where they lash out in anger or shut down before they can have a conversation. Buck’s “I don’t have to have feelings for everyone I sleep with” was particularly cutting. And once again, Tommy assumes Buck’s feelings about something instead of listening and trusting Buck when he says something isn’t true or about what he wants.

This kitchen scene expands on the minute layers of Ferrigno Jr’s performance in the breakup scene to reveal an insecure Tommy Kinard. His “you wouldn’t mean to, but you would end up breaking my heart” line from 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 6 was about someone trying to shield themselves from a theoretical hurt all wrapped up into one giant assumption about someone else’s feelings.

Considering that Tommy appears to have been worried about Buck’s feelings for Eddie the whole time blows his entire persona wide open. It’s a pretty astounding and disappointing revelation since Tommy was friends with Eddie first and close enough to him that he knew Chris (Gavin McHugh). Rest in peace, Eddie and Tommy’s friendship from 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 5.

But this is another thread that’s taken root in Tommy’s character. At the bar, he admits to Buck that he doesn’t know Eddie has moved, even calling him “Diaz” to emphasize further how much he has lost touch with Eddie. The 118, too. And he was clearly alone at the bar before Ravi grabbed him up. Throughout his time on the show as Buck’s love interest, Tommy has reiterated time and again a sense of loneliness he feels, even when he distances himself first.

But since Tommy brought it into the open, we must also discuss the elephant in the room. Though the show is still shying away from saying the word “bisexual,” 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 11 digs further into Buck’s queer identity in a way that’s surprisingly fresh, not just for queer representation but also for allowing Buck his agency. A few episodes ago, Buck’s less-than-ideal response to Eddie moving veered toward childish behaviors, but since then, he’s accepted the circumstances. That doesn’t mean he can’t still be sad. As he says to Maddie, “It sucks” when your best friend moves.

9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 11 addresses a ship head-on.

However, from the outside, Buck’s abandonment issues look like he has deeper feelings for Eddie—at least, they do to Tommy. Despite 9-1-1 Season 7 interviews indicating they did not want to do the “in love with my straight best friend” trope after Buck came out as bisexual, it is still something that should be considered, if only to double down on not wanting to take that route.

To do so, the show would have to address the Buck/Eddie ship head-on. This marks the first time the show has explicitly addressed the popular fanon ship between Buck and Eddie (Ryan Guzman), a move that some will say is a long time coming. How it’s handled in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 11 is as delicately as possible. But it also works on a meta-textual level, as well.

When Buck says, “As much as everyone seems to want me to be hopelessly pining for my straight best friend, it just isn’t like that,” Maddie and the audience should take him at his word. Many like to put words in Buck’s mouth on and off screen. Here, though, he’s standing tall on his feelings. Allow him that agency. Tommy, too, needs to hear it, but he once again departs on bad terms with Buck.

Buck admits that he doesn’t want to unpack because that means Eddie and Chris are gone. Still, after his talk with Maddie and realizing that using Tommy as a distraction is not the best reason to get back together with someone, he can unpack his belongings and truly settle into his house, suggesting a close to this arc.

As for Tommy and Buck, there are hints that they might not be over yet. While Buck ends the episode deciding he needs to be alone, the “calling Tommy” thread is still left open. They broke up when Buck asked Tommy to move in; in the morning after the scene in this episode, Tommy brings up moving in. “Well, I’m not ready to move in,” he says, the “yet” implied.

His suggestion to get back together makes sense, considering his breakup speech included the words, “As much as I want to be, I’m not your last.” Buck couldn’t sleep at his new house until Tommy was there. 9-1-1 has been pulling on this Buck and Tommy thread for the past five episodes; at some point, it will unravel.

9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 11 continues a strong start for this back half of the Season. Filled with fantastic sequences, cinematic scale, engaging relationships, and character drama, Aisha Hinds deserves so much praise as a first-time director.

9-1-1 airs new episodes every Thursday on ABC and Hulu.

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