‘9-1-1’: Chimney’s Plan to Propose to Maddie Hits a Couple Snags (RECAP)

Kenneth Choi in '9-1-1'
Spoiler Alert
FOX

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for 9-1-1 Season 6 Episode 16, “Lost & Found.”]

Unfortunately, but predictably, it’s not going to be an easy path to an engagement for Chimney (Kenneth Choi) and Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) on 9-1-1. At one point in the latest episode, Chimney and Hen (Aisha Hinds) end up in the back of Athena’s (Angela Bassett) patrol car!

First, Chimney struggles to choose the right ring, leading to him wondering if it’s a mistake. (He remembers how things went with Tatiana.) Hen reminds him that he has something special with Maddie. He leaves the store with a ring. But everyone chimes in once he shows it to the rest of the 118. Buck (Oliver Stark) is excited to be family officially and thinks he should be his best man. (Hen has thoughts.) Bobby (Peter Krause) offers to officiate and host. Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody) brings up wedding customs. Eddie (Ryan Guzman) asks about his plan for the actual proposal.

Then Maddie shows up to get Jee-Yun from Chimney just as he’s showing their daughter the ring and talking to Bobby about his nerves. Bobby does a horrible job of distracting Maddie by hugging her out of the blue, and Chimney has to wait for her to leave to stand so she doesn’t see the ring box in his pocket.

Kenneth Choi in '9-1-1'

FOX

On the way to a call, the topic of conversation is, of course, the proposal (though some ideas sound more like calls than romantic gestures). Hen shares how she and Karen (Tracie Thoms) both planned to propose the same weekend. Eddie asked Shannon because she told him she was pregnant. Soon, Chimney decides not to propose because he worries about Maddie turning him down.

Then, to Buck’s surprise, he realizes Hen isn’t as on board with the potential engagement as he thought. She remembers when Maddie left, and Chimney was raising Jee alone. She knows what Maddie was going through, but also knows what that did to her best friend. Hen points out their relationship has been one trauma after another from the beginning. Maybe both need to heal from that before jumping into marriage. As Buck sees it, that’s what the last year has been. On the other hand, Hen thinks that could be why Chimney is spiraling.

But then Chimney gets back on the proposing train after a call in which a guy refused to give up after losing a possession in a landfill. The only problem now is: The ring box is empty. A search of the firehouse doesn’t yield any results, but Chimney does start accusing everyone of taking it (to teach him a lesson or mess with him). He then turns on Hen since she’s had access as his partner and tried to talk him out of it at the store. She suggests that his nerves are telling him he shouldn’t get married, and the others leave them to talk.

Hen assures Chimney that she’ll support any decision he makes but explains it’s his indecision that worries her. She watched how he struggled when Maddie left and blamed himself. Can he trust that won’t happen again? Chimney insists they spent a lot of time rebuilding on both sides and Maddie’s in a better place — and brings up when Hen cheated on Karen. (Ouch!) Her wife forgave her, and they moved forward. That’s what Chimney wants. As he sees it, that’s marriage: Just because you hurt the ones you love doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be together. He gets that she was just trying to protect him and loves her for it, though she overstepped.

And so all that’s left to do is find the ring. That takes them back to the landfill from the call and ultimately leads them to the back of Athena’s patrol car. But no ring. Hen tells him that doesn’t mean he can’t still have the marriage if that’s what he wants.

Unfortunately, now, he feels like a loser, failure, and idiot, and he hides out at Hen’s instead of going home. Chimney sees this as a sign the universe is trying to tell him something. Every time he and Maddie try to make something real, concrete, it falls away like sand. He thinks it’s time he pays attention to that.

But he might have seen that Jee had the ring if he had just gone home! He never took it back from her earlier. Jee takes the ring and puts it in the bed in her dollhouse … and Maddie completely misses it when she picks her daughter up.

Let’s be honest: Nothing about this surprises us. We’re just happy no one’s bleeding.

9-1-1, Mondays, 8/7c, Fox