RECAP: ‘9-1-1’ Season 8 Episode 18 — “Seismic Shifts”

9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 18 attempts to wrap up the season and a three-episode grief arc, but ultimately fails to deliver in either aspect. Rushed conclusions to barely thought-out premises result in an unsatisfying finale where most of the interpersonal drama feels unearned.

9-1-1 is no stranger to featuring a large-scale emergency for its finale. However, the building collapse takes up too much time for a finale that has many personal stories to wrap up, not to mention the lingering grief from Bobby’s (Peter Krause) death. 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 18 begins at a going-away party for Eddie (Ryan Guzman). He gets gifted his turnouts even though they only do that for retiring firefighters. Buck (Oliver Stark) also reveals that he’s considering transferring out of the 118. When questioned about this decision, he tells the others that the 118 is just a number with Bobby gone.

However, this sentiment isn’t present in the episodes following Bobby’s death. Despite Bobby telling Buck the 118 would need him, there’s not much onscreen of Buck trying to keep the 118 together. 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 17 showcases the 118 operating well on their own. Buck’s sudden decision to transfer doesn’t feel earned by this post-Bobby arc.

This is due to other missteps in his grief story in the last episode, including, but not limited to, Eddie calling Buck selfish for feeling sad about Bobby, and no one else checking in on Buck. Instead, this transferring conflict is just lazily introduced to make the 118 coming together at the collapsed building to save Graham hit harder, which it barely does.

9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 18 proves how poorly handled story arcs were.

The collapsed building set piece is impressive in scale. The three main rescues involve a mother and a daughter, whom Chimney (Kenneth Choi) and Hen (Aisha Hinds) take care of pretty quickly. Buck and Ravi help an older man trapped inside a closet, with an assist from Eddie and a zip line. Athena (Angela Bassett) keeps Graham and Donnie company, but they are trapped between stones, while Donnie’s girlfriend runs for help.

9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 18 wants you to believe that the 118 is fractured, but they do pretty well broken off into their usual pairings. Even when they come back together to save Graham and Donnie, it’s not that different from the many other times they’ve worked together on a major rescue.

Bobby’s death in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 15 was a bold move for a show that took eight seasons to kill off a main character. The remaining three episodes promised an exploration of how Bobby’s loss affected the whole team. But while Athena’s grief and Chimney’s anger got room to breathe, the three-episode grief arc ultimately feels lacking on a larger scale. 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 18 tries to sell us on the idea that the 118 can’t function anymore, but not enough has gone into showcasing that idea to be convincing. This is why the 118 working together to save Graham and Donnie doesn’t work as a “coming back together” moment; they are never really fractured.

The tension between Athena and Chimney is the only storyline that carries over well across all three post-Bobby episodes. In the last episode, Athena tells Karen (Tracie Thoms) that she and Chimney should keep things professional. But when they come face-to-face under the collapsed building, just keeping it professional is easier said than done.

They do their jobs, but Bobby’s absence permeates the air between them. It’s hard not to compare the collapsed building to the similar atmosphere of the blown-up lab, but this time, it’s Chimney doing the saving, rallying everyone to ensure Donnie and Graham both live. It’s clear, too, that this is only possible because of Bobby’s sacrifice.

Athena and Chimney come to terms with each other by the end of 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 18. Athena telling Chimney that Bobby would be proud of his leadership during this rescue is a beautiful moment between the two. It’s one of the rare moments that does feel earned by this narrative simply because time was dedicated to their tension in the past two episodes. And when Hen accidentally calls Chimney captain at the firehouse, it’s a nice little tease into Chimney’s future as captain.

Later, Gerrard informs everyone that there were no casualties, and the unspoken reason rings heavy in the air. Without Bobby’s guidance, leadership, kindness, dedication, and sacrifice, this team would not exist to save the people they can. Seeing the 118 struggle more in this post-Bobby world would have been nice, especially through Buck and Hen, who both feel short-changed in their grief arcs. Buck especially received final orders from Bobby to look after the 118, but the show never fully allowed him to do that.

The consequences of Eddie’s rushed Texas arc continue in 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 18. The entire first half of 9-1-1 Season 8 consisted of Eddie respecting Chris’ (Gavin McHugh) decision to stay in Texas. But just as in the Texas arc, where their father-son reconciliation ignored the root cause of their separation, Eddie’s return to L.A. and the 118 ignores Chris.

Even Chimney, in his rousing speech to the 118 about how they’re a family, tells Eddie he needs to stay because the 118 can’t fall apart. This, of course, forgets that Eddie has a very real life and house in El Paso, and doesn’t acknowledge that coming back isn’t just up to Eddie just because Chimney tells him to come back. As much as I appreciated Eddie’s insistence that he respect Chris’s wishes in the first half of 9-1-1 Season 8, Chris has had no real voice throughout this entire storyline.

Post-Bobby, the only conflict that holds is between Athena and Chimney.

9-1-1 made it a point to show Chris with friends in El Paso, yet it doesn’t allow him to voice his feelings on the decisions that affect his life. This is particularly egregious because the show comes across as incredibly ableist when they don’t allow Chris any agency in what happens in his life.

9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 18 spends a lot of time focused on what Eddie sees as home. In 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 17, Hen and Karen mention that Eddie still calls L.A. and not El Paso “home.” The episode consists of many big moments that showcase that L.A. is the right place for Eddie to be, but these moments are all centered around the 118.

He gets a hero entrance at the collapsed building scene, coming in to save the day by shooting a zip line gun at the building. This, too, doesn’t feel earned because Eddie’s place at the 118 has not been his focus all season. That focus has been and should have been on Chris. The unceremonious way Eddie and Chris move back and Buck move out is hilariously pointed, but it also reeks of poor story planning for the season.

9-1-1 is also no stranger to a season-ending montage, but this one leaves much to be desired. Maddie having her baby with no lead-up is very strange, and Athena selling her and Bobby’s house is as random as Eddie’s job as an Uber driver. Hen and Karen’s adoption of Mara was offensively short, despite the season beginning with a whole arc about a congresswoman trying to stop that adoption.

This shouldn’t be surprising, considering how quickly that arc also wrapped itself up. And Eddie and Chris moving back into their house is just another band-aid on their horribly patched-together story resolution. But the reality of the procedural nature of 9-1-1 means that band-aid is the ultimate cure, but will continue to fester and peel, and expose the cracks of rushed conclusions and false catharsis.

Throwing music over slow-motion scenes for peak emotionality can’t always make up for the fact that logic and character motivation are still necessary in telling a story. Why did Athena decide to sell the house, and what does that say about where she’s at in her grief about Bobby? Her recent conversations about Bobby have mostly been about Chimney.

These final moments of 9-1-1 Season 8 fail to honor Athena’s grief by skipping over essential parts in that grieving process, such as moving on from the house they built together. Is she letting go, or running away? The final line of the 9-1-1 Season 8 is the one moment that does work. When Athena says “Hello, Bobby” to Maddie and Chimney’s newborn, it’s a chillingly beautiful new beginning.

9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 18 tries hard to sell a reunited 118 in the face of a great loss, but it didn’t do the work of fracturing them in the first place. This leads to unearned and cheap emotional catharsis for almost everyone.

9-1-1 is available on Hulu.

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