RECAP: ‘9-1-1’ Season 8 Episode 15 — “Lab Rats”

It’s hard to know where to begin. The death of a main character will always cut deep, and 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 15, titled “Lab Rats,” made sure to twist the knife as they gut us. The companion to the previous episode finds the 118 sans Buck still stuck inside the lab in the aftermath of the explosion, with a deadly virus in the air and the only vial of the cure in the hands of a wannabe Nobel Laureate looking for the highest bidder. It’s a beautifully shot, action-packed hour that ends in a tragedy both shocking and gut-wrenching, but the aftermath of which spells some interesting times ahead for 9-1-1.

Let’s start things off in the lab. Chimney’s (Kenneth Choi) getting worse, and Hen is still recovering from her collapsed lung. With Maddie’s (Jennifer Love Hewitt) help, the team works together to get Chimney stable enough while they wait for Athena (Angela Bassett) and Buck (Oliver Stark) to track down the cure. While the rest of the hour is action-heavy, the scenes between the 118 inside the lab are rife with wonderful character-specific moments. Everyone gets a chance to reflect or to express fear in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 15. Chimney asks Bobby to look after Maddie, a particularly cursed moment considering Bobby (Peter Krause) has already made the decision to save Chimney.

Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody)is unsure if he should call his loved ones, to which Hen (Aisha Hinds) tells him that making that call is for him, and moving forward, it’ll be even harder for them to watch him go to work. It’s a poignant moment considering Ravi was contemplating quitting in the previous episode, but it would also be nice to know about Ravi outside of his job. Who did he want to call in this life-or-death situation?

Hen gets a big moment in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 15, too. After Chimney helps save her life in the previous episode, Hen gets up with a chest tube still in and fights her way to Chimney’s side in order to assist in getting him stable. These kinds of moments in these kinds of situations are the defining qualities of this show, and are important in selling a loss like Bobby Nash. But we’ll get to that.

Outside of the lab, Buck and Athena go rogue at Bobby’s suggestion to go after Moira instead of letting the military and the FBI lead the hunt. As Athena tells Buck, the 118 is expendable. If the military gets their hands on the cure first, they won’t use it to save Chimney. It’s not the first time Athena and Buck have teamed up, but they make a great duo.

It’s a race against time in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 15 to save lives.

Despite the dire circumstances in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 15, there’s still room for some comedy. However, if there’s anything 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 15 misses the mark on, it’s Moira. She doesn’t make it far in her escape, and essentially tells her entire plan to a pharma guy, who calls the cops on her.

Some logistical inconsistencies seem to have been scrapped in the edit of 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 15 to get Athena and Buck from point A to point B. There are too many things happening in quick succession, so some of the minor details get lost, like their decision to go to Karen (Tracie Thoms). And when exactly did Buck call Tommy (Lou Ferrigno Jr) between seeing the military arrive at the pharmaceutical building and running upstairs to detour Athena and Moira to the rooftop? How did Athena get around the military on her way back down the building for Karen to pick her up? But in an episode like this one, the emotional beats of the characters take precedence in the face of some of these gripes.

But speaking of, remember that “calling Tommy” thread left open again at the end of 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 11? Buck finally makes that call, and Tommy answers in a big way. Atop the roof of the pharmaceutical building, Tommy lands his LAFD helicopter, offering a getaway from the military and the FBI so they can deliver the antidote to Chimney on time. It’s poetic, and maybe a little hysterical, that Tommy has a habit of stealing municipal property to help the 118 in a crisis. Now here he is again, evading government officials through Downtown LA at a single phone call from Buck. After all, what’s a little running from police under threat of domestic terrorism charges between ex-boyfriends?

The helicopter chase is shot beautifully, and not quite like anything 9-1-1 has done before. It’s all real footage, no CGI involved in the air, lending a cinematic feel to the whole ordeal. It’s an exciting sequence, and though the chase ends up being a distraction for Athena to get away with the cure, it’s a sequence filled with emotional stakes as well as narrative stakes. The clock is ticking for Chimney to get the cure, but there’s tension between Buck and Tommy as well. A life-or-death situation is a perfect reunion after their fight back in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 11.

As they weave in between buildings high in the Los Angeles skies, Buck thanks Tommy for doing this for him. Tommy answers that he’s doing this for Chimney, a nice reminder of the history Tommy has with the 118 and with Chimney specifically, who once saved Tommy’s life in a methane leak. This reestablishes that Tommy has connections to this story beyond Buck. At Buck’s obvious disappointment, Tommy breaks and admits he’s, of course, doing this for Buck, too. They smile at each other. Thus, their will-they-won’t-they continues.

Athena’s able to deliver the cure in time to save Chimney, with Karen acting as her getaway driver, and dodging being arrested as she does it. Buck, Athena, and Tommy, along with Moira, watch on the monitor as Chimney awakens and Bobby gives the go-ahead to save his people. And then, he locks himself inside.

Exposed to the virus through a crack in his airline, Bobby’s known he was a goner for a while. But with only one vial of the antidote available, he made a decision to save his teammate as any captain would. These final goodbyes, first between Buck and Bobby, and then between Athena and Bobby, are some of the best scenes 9-1-1 has ever done. The father-son dynamic between Bobby and Buck has been a staple on the show. Bobby’s calm assurances to Buck that Buck is going to be okay, that the 118 is going to need him, ending with an “I love you, kid,” hurt in the best way.

But it’s the moment Bobby tells Buck to leave and not come back that has stayed with me. It’s the quiet of the moment. Time and time again, Buck has rebuked Bobby’s orders, but here, he doesn’t talk back, he doesn’t fight. He looks at Bobby, a silent goodbye that holds so much history between them, the camera staying on Buck for longer than usual to really hold the weight of the moment. And then Buck turns and walks away, shutting the door behind him, only to have his breakdown alone.

And then there’s Athena and Bobby at the end of 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 15. There’s so much in this goodbye that is important to Bobby’s character and to the relationship between Athena and Bobby. It is vital that Bobby tells Athena that he doesn’t want to go. Considering 9-1-1 Season 7 featured a pseudo-goodbye montage that held heavy suicidal implications on Bobby’s part, it’s important that Bobby’s real death is not just a continuation of that. He does not want to die. He does not want to leave Athena. It gives Bobby agency in defining what’s happened to him.

This death hurts a lot in the wider context of 9-1-1 Season 8 specifically. The end of 9-1-1 Season 7 saw the destruction of Athena and Bobby’s house. They’ve been rebuilding all season, creating a place that speaks to the love they have for each other, not simply a replica from relationships past. But though they’ve physically been rebuilding a home during 9-1-1 Season 8, Bobby found his home and started to live again the moment he went out to dinner with Athena in 9-1-1 Season 1.

The clock ticks down for one of 118’s own for good.

But as he tells Athena in his final moments, he’s been living on borrowed time. The death of his wife and kids in an apartment fire he was partially responsible for has been haunting him ever since, along with all the other lives lost. Bobby was confronted with the realities of that aftermath last season when he crossed paths with Amir (Malcolm Jamal Warner), a survivor of that fire.

Over the years, Bobby has grappled with and made peace with his role in that tragedy, with his alcoholism, and worked every day to help those around him who may have similar experiences. He came to the 118 unwilling to open up to anyone, and yet still created a family under that roof, while learning to live again, with Athena.

The Bobby and Athena relationship has been the cornerstone of 9-1-1 for eight seasons. They’ve saved each other, challenged each other, and loved each other many times over. They first came together during one of 9-1-1 Season 1’s heart-wrenching tragedies — a motorcycle accident in which a father, torn in two, talked to his son on the phone while he died. It was one of their first true standout moments in the show. But from there, they were off on a whirlwind romance that proved second chances at love are possible. This is a loss for the ages.

Bobby’s death marks a significant change for 9-1-1. It’s the first time the show has killed off a main character, and Bobby wasn’t just a main. He was the captain of the 118, the glue that held the team together. But that’s why his death holds the appropriate weight. If 9-1-1 was going to do a cast shake-up to send these characters into uncharted waters, it was always going to have to be Bobby. He has a connection to all of them, and with his death, they’ll each unravel in their own ways, before coming back stronger together.

It’s been true for a while now that 9-1-1 has gotten stale in certain aspects. Characters feel stuck in never-ending loops of retreaded stories. Despite the show largely focusing on their jobs as firefighters, there has been no real consideration for how each character grows in their job. What do they want, what are their motivations, and how do they operate within the larger LAFD? Bobby’s death provides an opportunity to explore those avenues and allows for these characters to step out of their comfort zone and be challenged in a way we haven’t seen before.

Did Bobby’s death in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 15 have to be the catalyst for that? Probably not. But his death also brings stakes back to this show. Each character has had multiple near-death experiences, and with each one, they start to lose their significance. With Bobby’s death, suddenly every call the 118 goes out on is terrifying.

9-1-1 Season 8 could have featured more Bobby and Athena before this happened. Their house build got left behind for many episodes, and was not really ever brought up again in any significant detail until the last episode. And while this two-parter has been some of the best the show has to offer, it almost could have been a three-parter to really draw this tragedy out. But there’s no denying this episode delivered on making it hurt.

It’s hard to know when the tears first started flowing. Bobby praying in his final moments, and the looks on everyone’s faces as they all realized what’s happened. It’s also significant that everyone’s separated from their loved ones while hearing the news. This already establishes the fracture this death will cause in future episodes, but it also foreshadows how they’ll need each other in the times to come. After all, it’s their people who make life worth living. 

9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 15 will go down in the 9-1-1 history books as a big swing, one that has yet to see the fallout of such a decision. However, that doesn’t change how well this episode handles each character’s moment, doing everyone justice in the face of the show’s biggest tragedy.

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

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