The core 9-1-1 team has always been indestructible…until now.
Thursday’s episode of the ABC first responder drama picked up in the middle of a contagion crisis. Chimney (Kenneth Choi) was rapidly progressing through the fatal symptoms of a mutated version of CCHF, or Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, while Hen (Aisha Hinds) lay on the table recovering from emergency in-the-field surgery after an explosion trapped the 118 firefighters in a biomedical research laboratory.
But in the end, both Chimney and Hen are rescued — though the same cannot be said for Bobby (Peter Krause), who hid his exposure to CCHF until after Chimney had been given the only existing dose of the cure.
After a tearful goodbye to his wife Athena (Angela Bassett), Bobby gets down on his knees and prays before collapsing onto the table. In the final moments of the episode, his body is removed from the lab in a body bag.
In case you’re thinking it’s all a fakeout, 9-1-1 showrunner Tim Minear promises it’s not. Though, he tells Entertainment Weekly, we haven’t necessarily seen the last of Bobby on the show.
Here the showrunner reveals when he decided to kill Bobby, what it was like telling Krause and the rest of the cast, and the Easter egg he planted earlier this season that hinted at this coming death.
Peter Krause in a promotional shot for ‘9-1-1’. Disney/Justin Stephens
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How long had you been planning to do this to all of us?
TIM MINEAR: I would say since last season on some level. Well, I would say even before that. All the way back in season 4, even, we’d been talking about how “somebody eventually has to meet their maker.” So I kind of always knew that the show would need it at some point, because the next time Athena lands a plane on a freeway or a ship gets capsized or something, I just want the audience to kind of grip their chairs a little tighter because “He might do it. He’s done it before!” So it just felt like it needed something like that.
Why did it have to be Bobby?
The decision about who to do it to, that was the hard one. But I just felt like, “If I’m going to do this, I need to do it in such a way that it will have the maximum effect for every character story.” And so it’s Bobby, right? I mean, that’s going to affect everybody.
It also made sense for me in terms of it not being an arbitrary death. In a way, it is the tragic, logical culmination of his arc. He came to L.A. with a death wish, and then he learned to love life again. And then when he finally has to make the sacrifice, it’s not because he wants to go, it’s because it’s the thing he has to do. It is true redemption. So everything about it lined up.
It really is a shocker, because there’s no indication leading up to the reveal.
Well, there is a moment in episode eight, the midseason [finale], there’s a moment where [Callum Blue’s] Brad Torrance says that the captain that he plays on the TV show [Hotshots] will not be coming out of his coma, and there’s a fan there — the guy who was going to jump — who says, “You can’t kill him! He holds the fire fam together.” So that was me kind of hinting a little bit about what my intentions were.
What did Peter Krause say when you told him?
He was great. He understood creatively why I was doing it, and I was only doing it for creative reasons. I love Peter. Everyone loves Peter. Peter loves working on the show. So I mean, it’s almost like Peter Krause was unfortunate collateral damage for what I had to do to Bobby, in a way. But he was great about it. He really understood it. And I think that it’s been an incredibly emotional month or so for everybody, but particularly for me and Peter, because I shared it with Peter. I had to sell it to the network on it, and once I got the green light, I reached out to him and we just kept it between ourselves for quite a while. He knew all about it when we were shooting the Leslie Ann Warren episode, and probably even before that.
What about the rest of the cast?
I had to call all the cast, who would not believe me. They all tried to bargain with me. I am a benevolent God, but I just felt like it was something that needed to happen. So the last month has been super emotional for all of us, and I think for Peter in particular. I really credit him for his professionalism and his friendship. We’ve now known each other for quite a while. He used to live right behind me for the first several years of the show, and I can’t wait to do something with him again, quite frankly. In fact, this is not his last appearance this season.
Bobby (Peter Krause) and Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody) help Chimney (Kenneth Choi) on ‘9-1-1’ season 8, episode 15. Disney/Christopher Willard
It is 9-1-1, after all. How will this play out as everyone grieves?
Well, I think it’s going to have reverberations forever. It’s certainly going to shape season 9. But one thing that I wanted to make sure of was that I would have these [upcoming] last three episodes of season 8 so the characters could at least begin to process it and to grieve.
What I did not want to do was make it a season finale. First of all, I think the audience would’ve been telling themselves, “Okay, they’re going to pull a switch next year. He’ll be back, he’s not really dead.” But more importantly, I felt like that the audience needs a moment to kind of grieve as well with the characters. So the next three episodes are all about this loss on some level.
You’ll see Athena trying to deal with it in episode 16. And then you’ll really see the fallout for Chimney in episodes 17, and particularly in 18. They all have fallout, but Chimney in particular. Chimney was the guy who way back in season 1, Bobby shared his origin story with: “I’m going to check out once I’ve saved this amount of people and fill up this book.” Chimney was the guy who kind of pushed him toward maybe continuing to live, not just suffer. And now here’s Chimney alive because Bobby isn’t. So that’s going to have a particular ramification for him.
Bobby’s death also leaves a leadership vacuum as the 118 doesn’t have a captain.
Yes, there’s a leadership vacuum that will not necessarily be solved this year. That’s going to be a big part of season 9. It’s not only an impossible vacuum for the one 118 to fill, it’s an impossible vacuum for the show to fill. So it’s like we’re both going to be struggling with the same questions and the same challenges on screen and off.
Buck (Oliver Stark) mourns Bobby on ‘9-1-1’ season 8, episode 15. ABC/Youtube
Buck’s final moments with Bobby were heartbreaking. What went into writing that scene?
It’s like he’s losing his father, so that was obviously important…. Normally in [writing] something like this, we would have all the characters together at the end. But there was something that interested me about the fact that everyone is completely isolated. You see everyone reacting, but they’re not together, which is kind of a fractal of where I’m going in the last couple of episodes of the season. It’s hard for the center to hold when you take out the thing that’s keeping it together.
Athena (Angela Bassett) and Bobby (Peter Krause) on ‘9-1-1’ season 7. Chris Willard/Disney
How will Bobby’s impact Athena’s role in the 9-1-1 family?
Her role in the 9-1-1 family is the subject of the next couple of episodes in some ways, but I have plans for season 9 that, rest assured, her connection to that firehouse will be just as deep and just as personal as it was when Bobby was the captain of it. That’s all I really can say about that.
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9-1-1 season 8 continues Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
