Note: This story contains spoilers from “9-1-1” Season 10, Episode 1.
“9-1-1” promised a volcanic armageddon to kick off its milestone 10th season, and it is already delivering in spades.
As with other multi-episode events on the ABC first responder drama, Episode 1, titled “That Sinking Feeling,” merely set up the devastation to come when a massive sink hole opened up in downtown Los Angeles in its opening emergency. By episode’s end, a massive burst of lava exploded from the ruins — with the firefighting crew and other officials doing what they could to help people to safety.
It may be some time before viewers learn exactly how a volcano managed to erupt from under the surface of the California city. But here’s how “9-1-1” set up its latest major emergency in the Season 10 premiere.
Lava land
The Season 10 premiere opened with a multi-vehicle emergency that got glaringly worse after a massive sinkhole opened up and left passengers in grave danger. Lead by Chimney (Kenneth Choi), the firefighters of the 118 helped save everyone without major casualties — and a “Happy 10 years” balloon recognized the start of the landmark season for the beloved drama.
But the team was far from done with the mysterious act of God. With Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) now at the head of the 9-1-1 dispatch center, she was invited to a debriefing among emergency response and city officials to debrief on the incident led by Office of Emergency Management executive Ty Worrell (Rob Huebel) — a pissed off leader wondering how something of this magnitude happened without even one warning sign.
However, Maddie noticed a 20% uptick in emergency calls in the area of the sink hole ahead of the incident, so she was assigned with reviewing days of calls to find a pattern or clue as to what’s going on.
The next day, an aquarium tank emergency went off after the water started presenting high sulphur figures and seemingly turning into acid, leaving one snorkeler in peril. The crew saved a man in danger whose body started to burn from the water, but management ensured there were no signs of filter issues from the tank’s main water line — “One hell of a glitch,” Chimney said.
That night, Maddie’s investigation and a suggestion from Chimney lead her to believe something is poisoning the water in a way that causes scary symptoms, paranoia and dead plants and animals. The aquarium emergency was another connection. She called Worrell to warn that she believed something bigger was coming; what exactly? She can’t tell yet.
The next day, he called asking what she knew after a strange sound started coming out from the sink hole. Maddie also realized that the circumference of the sink hole was getting bigger, another sign of the tragedy to come. But the tea kettle-like sound was the a big clue as to what was to come next. Chim told responding officials to make sure not to panic, as one of the crew members noticed chemicals and soundwaves were getting hotter inside the hole.
As the firefighters geared up to assist a scientist to go down and take a closer look, a big tremor went off. Then a bigger one hit and an explosion of lava started to splurge up, and seemingly land on Ty at episode’s end, kicking off the tragedy to come in subsequent episodes.
“That’s not a sink hole. That’s a volcano!” Hen said before the premiere’s end.
Detective Athena
While the firefighters took on the bigger mystery, Angela Bassett’s big new job seemed off to a lackluster start, with her most exciting case so far after being promoted to detective involving the kidnapping of a dog named Pickles. But after getting shot at the end of last season, she was welcoming the slow start after 30 years as a patrol officer — with some self-sabotaging getting in the way, too.
Mae told her to get ahead and demand a bigger case, before an injured man with strange burns got dumped outside the hospital — time to step up!
The clues led to a construction site where a few of the workers also had burns. She appeared to solve her first case and earn a big congrats from the department after the foreman confessed to an inebriated construction accident and the crew dropping the body of the main victim to cover their tracks.
But the celebration was over quickly for Athena. She received a call from the hospital that the victim died from his injuries, though a fellow detective tried to comfort her in that she got him justice. Athena thought there might be more to the story though.
Unable to let her hunch go, Athena learned that the victim’s burn was not consistent with the guilty foreman’s story. And she found security camera footage pointing to the victim staking out a jewelry store. She got access to the store’s safe and found it empty, with only a ladder into an underground hole that robbers clearly dug to steal the treasures within.
Of course, Athena went into the tunnel to investigate, at the same time as the sink hole mystery was close to erupting. As she was in there taking a look, the big tremor began and caused ruckus inside the tunnel — seemingly leaving Athena trapped underground at the end of the episode.
Daddy drama
Last time we saw Buck (Oliver Stark), he’d learned that his biological son Theo had lost his adoptive parents, leaving him as the sole caretaker of a toddler.
Three months later and in between sink hole emergencies, Buck ended up in the ER with a bad injury to his face — and claimed he tripped and badly injured himself at home. Theo called Eddie (Ryan Guzman) accidentally, signaling him to come and help his friend.
The ER doctor noted this is his fourth non-work emergency room visit in three months, about as long as he’s had custody of the kid. Buck told Eddie he let Theo watch “Nacho Libre” and he hit Buck accidentally in his excitement.
Eddie seemed worried the situation might be getting out of hand, and those concerns grew larger after a dinner at his house. Theo refused to sit and eat, just playing and destroying things around at the house as the others had dinner. Then, in a brusk but accidental move, Theo ran into Eddie’s son Christopher (Gavin McHugh) and stumbled him into the ground.
Looks like Theo needs some discipline and Eddie might have to give Buck the tough conversation to make it happen. If they survive the volcano, of course.
“9-1-1” airs Thursdays on ABC and streams the next day on Hulu.
