RECAP: 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 9 — “Sob Stories”

Oh, it’s so good to be back. 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 9, titled “Sob Stories,” hits it out of the park with a fantastic midseason premiere. The look and feel of the episode was reminiscent of early seasons of 9-1-1, with the added bonus of having amazing tension and conflicts between characters that don’t usually have conflict. All bets are off now.

The episode begins with a creepy 9-1-1 call that Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) takes. Showrunner Tim Minear told TV Insider that this part of the episode is based on a real-life serial killer called the Weepy-Voice Killer. Using a voice modulator, the killer tells Maddie that they don’t want to hurt the girl they’ve kidnapped and begs Maddie not to view them as monsters.

Love Hewitt has given many a great performance just sitting behind a computer screen, but she took things to a whole new level. As she tries to keep the killer talking, they give her the runaround, sending Athena (Angela Bassett) and her team to empty lots. Athena brings in Detective Amber Braeburn (Abigail Spencer) to assist in the case, yet it’s Maddie who connects all the dots of previous missing girls to the current one.

Tensions are high, even when crimes aren’t being solved.

The final showdown between the killer and Maddie in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 9 is a nail-bitingly intense back-and-forth. Once the killer threatens Jee-Yun, Maddie switches gears to deliver one of the most shocking turns of events in 9-1-1 history. This is where Love Hewitt shines.

Armed with her love for her daughter, Maddie grabs onto the one thing she knows the killer wants — to not hurt anyone else. The only way to stop that is for the killer to kill themselves. The emotion and intensity in Maddie’s face and voice marks this as one of Love Hewitt’s best performances on the show, and there’s still a whole other episode to go with this arc.

This is also such an intriguing direction to take Maddie. It’s dark, and it’s twisted, and it’s all recorded on a 9-1-1 dispatch call. Maddie told someone to kill themselves, and they did. As Maddie says, the killer was a bad person, yes, but knowing someone is hurting and still telling them to end it is antithetical to who Maddie is as a former nurse and 9-1-1 dispatcher. She helps people. She listens to them. She connects with them. She also saves them, no matter the cost.

However, there’s still the possibility that the person they find dead at the crime scene didn’t kill himself. Detective Braeburn attacks Maddie in her home, revealing herself to be the real killer and not Richard, the man she gave up as a proxy and who they found at the crime scene. This entire part of 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 9 delivered on all fronts — great pacing, fantastic buildup, and terrific performances. It’s hard to imagine how the next episode will top it, but surely it will if the previews are anything to go by.

9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 9 kills it in all areas, delivering one of the strongest episodes of the season.

Tension of another name begins boiling over at the 118. Buck (Oliver Stark) passively-aggressively tries to sabotage Eddie’s (Ryan Guzman) search for a subletter for his house. In an attempt to garner support from the rest of the 118, Buck lets it slip that Eddie is leaving in front of everyone, but it backfires. Chimney (Kenneth Choi), Hen (Aisha Hinds), and Bobby (Peter Krause) all give their support to Eddie, while Buck looks on, betrayed.

It’s not often Buck and Eddie fight. There’s the infamous 9-1-1 Season 3 grocery store scene during the lawsuit arc, but they reconcile shortly after that. But this is the first time the fight feels real, which is why it’s such a great part of the episode.

Buck, still reeling from a break-up with Tommy (Lou Ferrigno Jr), finds himself losing someone else in his life shortly after. Who isn’t going to be sad when their best friend leaves? If Buck wasn’t already feeling left behind from the breakup, he probably would have been more understanding of Eddie’s departure.

As it stands, Eddie’s reason for leaving is an important one. He needs to be there for Chris, and he can’t parent from Los Angeles. But Buck feeling unmoored from his life in the wake of this makes sense, even if his actions leave a lot to be desired. You’re 33 years old, Buck! Go to therapy.

We’re finally seeing some actual progress between Buck and Eddie.

But this kind of look into Buck’s psyche is a welcome element to start off this second half of 9-1-1 Season 8. People are complicated, and despite his demeanor and attitude resembling that of a golden retriever, as people like to say, Buck is a very complicated person whose issues of abandonment have not really been explored before. It started with the baking, and then he did everything he did in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 9.

It’s time to let Buck grow up. The confrontation between Eddie and Buck at the end of 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 9 is a step in the right direction for reconciliation and accountability on Buck’s part. Eddie said some things Buck needed to hear, and Buck heard them.

As for Eddie, things are feeling a little final, if his Miley Stewart turn back as he’s walking out the door is anything to go by. Thankfully, Minear told Deadline that we’ll see Eddie and Chris in Texas in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 12, in a few weeks. The Eddie and Chris drama definitely needs a narrative resolution.

All in all, 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 9 made up for much of the first half of the season’s struggle to find a pace. The two stories ran alongside each other well without intersecting at all, allowing its characters some nuance and room to be messy. More of this, please. And also dogs. Bring the dogs back.

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

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