9-1-1 is gearing up to head into its first full season without the 118’s captain after Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) tragically died on the job with three episodes still to go last spring. That’s not a death that fans are going to get over any time soon — and according to Angela Bassett (who plays Bobby’s now widow, Athena), one of her siblings is among them.
“My sister’s one of the fans, and she won’t stop talking about it,” she admitted to TODAY.com. “She is mad” and has said to Bassett, “It don’t make sense… Is he coming back?”
Unfortunately, Bassett doesn’t have anything to say that will make it easier for fans or her sister. “I have to keep his memory alive in some way. I’m making no promises. I’m wondering just like you, just like the fans.”
It would be quite the elaborate ruse should Bobby somehow be alive, but his death was pretty definitive, even though we didn’t see his body and only saw the body bag being carried out before the episode in which he died — the 15th of the season — ended with a shot of his helmet.
“Initially, it was just going to be the body bag,” showrunner Tim Minear told TV Insider of the image he was going to leave viewers with. When we couldn’t help but go “oof,” he shared, “The reaction that you’re having is the reaction that I was going for. People did not seem to like that, which is why I knew it was probably right. But when we were editing the episode, we found that shot [of the helmet], and I’m just like, ‘Put it at the end.’”
The three episodes after showed how Athena and the rest of the 118 grieved Bobby’s death. What they did not do was name a new captain of the 118. That, as well as seeing where Athena will be living — she put the house she and Bobby were building together when he died on the market at the end of the finale — are among the chief orders of business for 9-1-1 when Season 9 begins. And while we did see Peter Krause after Bobby’s death, via flashbacks and hallucinations, we don’t expect that to continue this fall.
What are you hoping to see in Season 9? Let us know in the comments section below.
9-1-1, Season 9 Premiere, Thursday, October 9, 8/7c, ABC