RECAP: ‘9-1-1’ Season 9 Episode 3 — “The Sky is Falling”

Who knew 9-1-1 going to space meant the show would become more grounded? 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 3, titled “The Sky is Falling,” finds the humanity in the chaos of space and Earthly emergencies.

The space sequences in this episode take place in the space pod, creating a nice claustrophobic atmosphere for Athena (Angela Bassett), Hen (Aisha Hinds) , and the rest of the group. They extinguish the fire, but in doing so, lose their ability to make it back to Earth. The tension in these scenes is quite effective.

Despite how silly the idea of 9-1-1 going to outer space seemed, it’s still able to create situations that feel very real on a smaller scale. Even inside the space pod, the teamwork between the space group allows us to care about the group outside of Athena and Hen. 

Still, Athena and Hen are the two main characters we care about up there, and there are plenty of wonderful moments for them. The loose connection they have to Earth through the 911 phone calls (made possible by an assist from Nashville, the first crossover between the shows) is both heartwarming and bittersweet. Hen and Karen get to talk to each other, but the contrast with Athena, who doesn’t have a significant other to call anymore, hits like a freight train. 

Despite the spectacle of outer space, “The Sky is Falling” still creates grounded situations. 

But that’s why a premise about outer space works. When the priority is the characters and their emotional interiority, almost anything can work. Pair with some amazing visuals of space, and you’ve got yourself a killer opening emergency. 

This particular opening emergency is headed for a four-parter, which, for pacing’s sake, is probably a good call. How that paces out the rest of this half-season remains to be seen. It does mean that we don’t properly get to check in Eddie (Ryan Guzman), Buck (Oliver Stark), Maddie, or Chimney (Kenneth Choi) outside of their job for over half of Season 9a, but there are still some great moments with them, particularly with Chimney in his role as interim captain.

Multiple times throughout this three-episode run so far, Chimney believes he’ll be fired for what he considers questionable decision-making in the field. However, these actions have resulted in lives saved. In the premiere episode, he signed off on using alcohol intravenously on children, giving them time to make it to the hospital. In 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 3, he makes a call that results in a woman losing her leg. Not only does he make the call, he performs the amputation himself. 

A big part of Chimney’s story in Season 1 was his wish that he had been given the cool, dangerous roles. He lied to his then-girlfriend about his saves and complained to Bobby about being sidelined. But over the years, Chimney’s done extraordinary things and built confidence in himself and his place at the 118.

Chimney continues to grow in 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 3.

The fact that he was the one that Bobby sacrificed himself for makes it all the more heartbreaking. Now that he’s in Bobby’s shoes, it’s hard for Chimney not to constantly compare his decision-making in the field to Bobby. 

That’s exactly what he does with Lori, the woman trapped under subway rubble. This situation also parallels the earthquake emergency in 9-1-1 Season 2, in which a basketball player was stuck under rubble, about to lose his leg. In that scenario, Bobby and the rest were able to successfully pull the kid out without losing his leg.

Here, Chimney waffles between knowing what has to be done and what he thinks Bobby would do. It’s a great display of how different the two are, but also how much Chimney has learned from Bobby.

While the result isn’t the same, Chimney still takes on the responsibility of informing Lori’s partner and doing the procedure himself so that his team doesn’t have to. There are elements of Bobby there, but Chimney follows his instincts, something he continuously does anyway, even if he doesn’t fully believe yet he’s worthy of the captain title. 

Bradley Buecker’s direction makes everything in this episode feel close to the action, not detached.

There’s a visceral element to 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 3. Bradley Buecker’s direction puts the audience right on eye level with a lot of the action and character interactions. This allows the episode to feel extremely up close and personal.

Even in the smaller moments, like Buck and Harry’s (Elijah M. Cooper) quick exchanges about Harry’s safety, feel high stakes just by the nature of how it’s filmed. There’s also a distinct lack of music in a lot of these action scenes, which heightens the emotionality and danger of the events on screen. 

That more “on-the-ground” feeling is also present with the two main rescue characters in 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 3, Lori and Cal. For such a small amount of screentime, their fight before the subway collapses really set the stage for the difficult scenario they’ll later find themselves in. That’s in large part due to their very believable performances. Throughout 9-1-1 Season 8, the show lost its edge in making you care about the rescue characters, but it has really course-corrected this season so far. 

Harry also gets to connect with Cal about how they’re both waiting for an answer about how their loved one is doing, allowing more insight into Harry as he continues his ride along with the 118. His anger at his mom in the last episode is just fear and grief underneath.

9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 3 continues its premiere emergency while keeping its characters front and center.

Having Harry express this to Cal, an outsider to the 118, widens the scope of these characters and their situations further. Not everything is so insular to the 118 and its extended family members, which can sometimes feel claustrophobic. When it can tie into a particular rescue ground, it is even more. 

At the firehouse, May (Corinne Massiah), Mara, and Denny set up a medical station for people who can’t make it to the overrun hospitals. Seeing May in action again is a nice surprise, as she takes charge of minor scrapes and bruises. Mara assists her and hilariously makes fun of Denny for being scared of blood.

This whole scenario provides a good callback to 9-1-1 Season 2, when May and Harry’s dad, Michael, took them to a shelter to help during the earthquake, another moment when they were worried about their mother. 

9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 3 continues this season’s fantastic opening emergency by focusing on the characters that make larger-than-life circumstances feel grounded. 

9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 3 is streaming now on Disney+ and Hulu, with new episodes every Thursday on ABC and available on Disney+ and Hulu the next day.

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