Note: This story contains spoilers from “9-1-1: Nashville” Episode 1.
“9-1-1: Nashville” brought franchise fans into the country-tinged world of The Music City, kicking things off with tornadoes, bachelorette emergencies and family drama.
The premiere wasted no time introducing the first responders in this corner of the franchise from Ryan Murphy, Tim Minear and Rashad Raisani, led by Capt. Don Hart (Chris O’Donnell). Alongside fellow rodeo rider and firefighter son Ryan (Michael Provost) and socialite wife Blythe (Jessica Capshaw), the premiere saw as their harmonious family dynamics were disrupted with the introduction of Blue Bennings (Hunter McVey), Don’s estranged son born out of an unexpected reunion with his ex Dixie (LeAnn Rimes).
“One of the things that Ryan Murphy was really excited about was to make a different kind of ‘9-1-1,’” showrunner Raisani told TheWrap. “[The show] does have that soapy kind of ‘Dynasty’ vibe and environment. We really want to lean into it and we’re having a lot of fun with it.”
After inadvertently helping rescue a group of bachelorettes from a drunk trolley accident after his stripper shift, the chance encounter with the firehouse leads Don to recruit Blue to be a cadet for the crew — kicking off his training to join them officially as a probie. Ryan isn’t exactly happy with learning about his half-brother, especially when he learns his mother knew about the secret all along as well.
The episode also laid the groundwork for deception, after a conversation between Dixie and Blue revealed her plans to use his new connection with the Harts to cheat them out of money. Whether he’ll follow through with that remains to be seen.
“9-1-1: Nashville” also had plenty of emergencies as it introduced the other members of the ensemble in Episode 1, culminating in a grandiose tornado call at a Kane Brown concert. After Kane and his fans came together to help the firefighters lift some heavy debris for a rescue, the episode ends on a wild cliffhanger as Don and Michael hold on for dear life with a tornado heading straight to them.
Raisani spoke with TheWrap about introducing ABC’s latest chapter in the “9-1-1” universe, how villainous Dixie will get and more.
TheWrap: The “9-1-1” franchise has always brought a mix of wild emergencies with personal drama, but “Nashville” is giving us those southern family drama vibes from the start. How soapy are you aiming for the show to get?
Raisani: The show will be soapy, in addition to having crazy emergencies. One of the things that makes it a little bit unique from the other two, is that it does have that soapy kind of “Dynasty” vibe and environment. We really want to lean into it and we’re having a lot of fun with it. I think we’ve got the right actors to pull it off and the right locations. We want to make it part of our thing.
The cast blends deliciously well from the start, as Don Hart’s secret comes to light during a bachelorette rescue and things start to unfold from there. When was the moment you knew you hit gold with this project?
It’s funny because, on the one hand, I feel like every day is a journey. I think that the second we came up with Nashville as our location and we went and explored it, and really started looking at what were the emergencies and the kind of people who live here.
I felt like this was just a very special city and environment for a show, with the music and the horses and the landscape and the culture and the Western vibe and the Americana. I just thought it would be such a great place to do a show. That was our first clue that this would be an exciting place, and certainly the city has really lived up to it with all the country stars and the incredible venues and stuff like that. And they’ve been wonderful to us as well by letting us have the keys to go wherever we really need to in the city for our crazy stuff.
At the center of this is the dynamics and relationships of the Harts and the Bennings, and the drama that unfolds between these families. Why make this one a family drama?
One of the things that Ryan Murphy was really excited about was to make a different kind of “9-1-1.” Obviously every firehouse is a family, and the other two shows certainly have that. “Lone Star” had a father and son in the same firehouse, but I think that when you talk about not just having two sons, but having two different mothers in the nature of family, the bonds of it become just way more complex. It’s a whole new level of overlap and overlay between all these different emotions that come up, because it’s really not just one family at the heart, it’s two [the Harts and the Bennings].
So it really just charged everything and just made it feel like a fresh way to get into the firehouse.
LeAnne Rimes’ Dixie makes quite an impression from the start, and clearly has a bone to pick with Don and several high-profile singers she mentions. Should we think of her as a full-on villain or will we see redeeming qualities?
The answer is yes to both. On one hand, she is our villain, but on the other, some of the greatest villains have incredible humanity to them — and that’s certainly there the way LeAnne plays Dixie. And there will be episodes where she’s a protagonist and she’s not the bad guy, you’re seeing things from her point of view and what she’s gone through and what she’s done for Don to help him in his life.
She’s a very complex person who has actually done a lot of good, but she’s also been done wrong, at least in her mind, and she’s pissed. So she’s definitely going to be, from most of our characters’ point of view, our villain early on.
Dixie is pushing Blue into tricking the Harts into letting him for a “secret plan” to get money out of them, but we see Blue hesitating. Are there cracks in that relationship already?
That’s going to be Blue’s journey in these first batch of episodes. He’s a complex person himself who is very sweet and good-natured. So it became really fascinating for us to say, what if you took somebody who is just so good, but put him in a position where he felt compelled to do something deceptive or dishonest or duplicitous, and watch how it cost him.
That’s exactly what we wanted to do with Blue. He loves his mother. He will always feel a loyalty to her that he will to nobody else. But that’s going to create some tension in him when he’s trying to try to make mom happy, but to do that, he’s got to do some things that make him feel like he’s violating his own morals. That’s definitely something we’re going to explore.
The show’s centerpiece emergency was a massive tornado wreaking havoc on a Kane Brown concert. How deep does the country music star roster get this season?
Obviously we have Kane, who is a superstar, and we’ve got LeAnne. We’ve got plans to get more of them.
One of the funny things is that we’ve been shooting all summer. We’re now getting into the fall, but it is really difficult to get country music stars in the summer because most of them are out on tour. So part of what we’ve been learning as we go is we’ve really got to figure out their schedules way in advance, so we can make sure they’ll be in town and ready to work for three days in a row.
I don’t think we have anybody else at the Kane Brown-level in our first 10 episodes, because we get so much more into our characters, but it’s something that we love doing and will continue to do.
Kane got a big heroic moment in the premiere when he encouraged his fans to help the firefighters lift a piece of the stage — a moment that also mirrored a moment with Buck from the flagship “9-1-1.” Was that a purposeful ode and how was it to work with the singer to bring it life?
To be honest, that is one of my favorite moments of all time of “9-1-1” so it’s always been in my psyche. The idea that people would risk dying for their community to help other people that they may not even know. A lot of people are craving that right now in society, to believe that people would come and help you, whether they agree with you on this or that, that they would come out and risk themselves just because you’re a fellow human being. That was something that was really powerful to me.
And to get Kane, who was so great and such a trooper when we shot the concert. Of course him lifting the stage is really heroic. But to me, the most heroic thing that Kane Brown the human being did was that his concert that he puts on, it was 100+ degrees that day. And the crowd that’s there just had to sit there with no shade. They’re getting cooked by the sun. And Kane stayed out there and hung out with them and talked to them and kept their spirits high, rather than retreating to the shade and a trailer — all things he could have done.
He really took care of them. And I thought that was a super cool thing to do. The cameras won’t ever see it, but that is the kind of person he is.
The episode ends with Don hanging on for dear life as the tornado is approaching, and the promo for next week’s episode teased a meeting between Blythe and Dixie. What’s next in this three-part premiere?
It’s going to get bumpy. There’s going to be some incredible action and some crazy tornado stuff, but then also some big time character stuff — we’re going to meet Brian’s separated wife in a very unexpected way. And then, one of our characters is going to have a massive emergency themselves and go to the mat.
There’s big stuff coming in Episode 2, and then even bigger stuff in 3.
“9-1-1: Nashville” airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and streams the next day on Hulu.
