Note: This story contains spoilers from “9-1-1” Season 9, Episode 13.
“9-1-1” thrives when it deviates from its formula in exchange for a very tense, character-focused episode, as it does in this week’s installment spotlighting Buck and Eddie.
Episode 13, titled “Mother’s Boy,” followed the aftermath of last week’s “9-1-1” crossover event in Nashville. After their flight faced massive delays, Buck (Oliver Stark) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) opted to rent a car and drive back to Los Angeles instead. Of course, the road trip took a horrific turn after a detour off the freeway landed them in a small town that wasn’t too welcoming — ending with the duo in a serious car accident that left Eddie in the hospital and Buck held captive by a deranged waitress.
“The Buckleys seem to be kidnap fodder,” series creator Tim Minear told TheWrap. “I always love these stripped down, tightly focused character stories that tend to be thrillers. They’re always my favorite episodes.”
Minear wrote the action-packed episode, which was directed by his longtime friend and collaborator Jonathan Lawrence. The showrunner said he relished the opportunity to work alongside Lawrence on the stunt-heavy hour, which made him reminisce of their times making Super 8 short films together growing up.
Beyond the big car stunts and thriller-worthy moments — including Eddie evading the town’s sheriff so he could search for Buck — the episode allowed for the beloved kidnapped firefighter to come to terms with his struggles with grief since the loss of Capt. Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) last season.
Turns out the waitress and her cook husband, who encountered the firefighters when they stopped at the diner where they worked, orchestrated his kidnapping as some sort of twisted coping mechanism for the loss of their own son, who bore a shocking resemblance to Buck and ended up brain dead after a motorcycle accident.
Minear said Buck admitting his own struggles with grief to his captors allowed him to start coming to terms with his feelings — something he’s been struggling with throughout Season 9.
“This was the episode where I really wanted to have him say something — not too much,” Minear said. “Him saying, ‘I lost somebody and he’s not around anymore, and sometimes I don’t know who I am because of that.’ That was the heart of it for Buck.”
It’s part of the throughline for Season 9, which has seen each member of the 118, as well as Bobby’s wife Athena (Angela Bassett) and her kids, come to terms with the loss of one of their own.
And unlike some of the other big moments in “9-1-1” history, the trauma from this episode won’t just go away. Minear teased the aftermath of this hellish road trip will impact Buck in subsequent episodes.
That should lead into whatever other craziness is in store for the “9-1-1” team as they wrap up Season 9, which also comes after receiving a Season 10 renewal at ABC along with a second season for its “9-1-1: Nashville” spinoff.
“There’s little easter eggs that have been planted throughout the season and there’s some big twists coming up,” Minear said. “I don’t even know how to tease them to you without giving them away, so I’m not going to.”
“9-1-1” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and streams the next day on Hulu.
