Did ‘9-1-1’ Finale Just Reveal 118’s New Captain for Season 9? Oliver Stark & Aisha Hinds Weigh In (VIDEO)

Meredith Jacobs May 15, 2025, 9:00 pm

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the 9-1-1 Season 8 finale “Seismic Shifts.”]

The good news: 9-1-1 Season 8 ends with no one else leaving the 118. That means Buck’s (Oliver Stark) not transferring and Eddie’s (Ryan Guzman) not moving back to Texas. Chimney (Kenneth Choi) puts his foot down after the firefighters help save the victims of the building collapse that ended the season’s penultimate episode.

Athena (Angela Bassett) is first on scene and the one to find those the most injured in the laundry room, where the explosion originated: Graham and Donnie. Chimney joins her, though Hen (Aisha Hinds) offers to go instead due to the tension between the two, and in the end, their patients parallel what happened with Bobby (Peter Krause) and Bobby. Graham helps them save Donnie, only to reveal he was worse off. The good news? With Chimney taking lead during the rescue, they’re able to save everyone. And after, Chimney and Athena are solid once again. As she tells him, Bobby always said he never gave himself any credit but he knew he was a smart, talented, capable paramedic and a great leader, and he’d be so proud of him.

Speaking of being a leader … Eddie almost leaves for the airport to return to Texas, only for his son Christopher (Gavin McHugh) to alert him to the building collapse on the news. And so he grabs the turnouts he’d been gifted and goes down to help, ultimately rescuing Buck, Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody), and a tenant who’d been trapped with a biplane across the street from another building.

When Oliver Stark and Aisha Hinds recently stopped by TV Insider’s office, we talked to them about the finale, including filming the disaster and that rescue. Stark shared that what helps is that there’s no green screen.

Anirudh Pisharody as Ravi, Oliver Stark as Buck — '9-1-1' Season 8 Finale

Disney / Christopher Willard

“We are in situations where we are surrounded by tons of rubble, so it makes it makes it easier to be very present in the scene,” he explained. “I was disappointed because I didn’t actually get to zip line across the street downtown. I got to do little five-foot increments of it, so it wasn’t quite as thrilling. … The production value and the work that goes into building the production up makes our job so much easier. And it is dusty and it is dirty and it is dark and it is cramped. There’s no getting away from those things, so there’s no phoning it in from our part. We are, in those moments, dealing with it as it’s happening.”

Upon everyone returning back to the 118, Chimney made it clear that no one was transferring (Buck) or staying in Texas (Eddie). “This is our firehouse. This is the 118. And it’s not just a number, it’s us. And you’re right, Buck. Things are never going to be the same again because Cap is gone. But leaving won’t change that. It won’t make you feel any less sad. It just means that you’ll be sad all alone. Bobby died so I could live, and it has screwed me up in ways I can’t fully express, but the truth is, he would have done that for any one of us. He knew that just coming into work every day, there’s a chance that one or more of us would not make it home, and his job above everything else was to make sure that we did. And we are all standing here right now because of him. This team, we are his legacy. So we can miss him, and we can mourn him, and we can even curse his name, but we are not going to disrespect him by throwing away what he built right here. So you hang up your turnouts, you hit the showers, you go home, and you get some rest because we are all going to see each other on our next shift, right here, together. Understood?” Hen immediately responds, “Copy that, Cap, I mean, Chim.”

It certainly felt like that was setting it up for Chimney to be captain in Season 9, but that has yet to be seen. For now, both Aisha Hinds and Oliver Stark say their characters would be all for it.

“I think that Hen has tremendous respect for Chimney, and so I think that she would give him the support and the respect that that role requires. I think for Hen in particular, though the chief offered the position to her, she’s always been able to jump in and out of the role knowing that Bobby was coming back to it. And so I think this puts it in a different context for her,” Hinds explained. “And so I think she felt comfortable kind of declining that position.”

Oliver Stark Reveals Cut Love Triangle on '9-1-1'

Stark agreed. “It’s a job that Buck probably sees himself one day hoping to do, but I don’t think he would feel comfortable wanting that position now. I think he looks at Hen and Chimney and he’s like, ‘Those are the people that I look up to.’ They’re every bit cut from the same cloth as Bobby was, and I think he’d have nothing but admiration and respect for Chimney in the role.”

The season ended with wrapping up some storylines. Both Buck and Athena need new homes; Eddie moved back in, and Athena put the house she and Bobby were building together on the market. In happier news, Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) gave birth, and she and Chimney named their son Robert Nash Han. “Hello, Bobby,” Athena said, holding him, to end the finale.

“Seismic Shifts” also saw some happy news for Hen and Karen (Tracie Thoms): They finally adopted Mara! Hinds agreed that the couple had been waiting for another shoe to drop all season.

“We have been going through this process for so many seasons that we sort of always prepare our heart to not be too connected to the children because at some point they’re going to take ’em away, which I think mirrors kind of the reality of the situation with people. So we had kind of adopted that same sensibility, but when they gave us that scene and we got to shoot that scene, it was just like a breath of fresh air,” she recalled. “It was so much excitement and joy for us as the characters and us as the actors playing the roles because so many people always say, ‘Can you let Hen and Karen just have joy? Just give them joy for a few episodes, let them be a family.’ And so here we are. We get to be a family.”

Watch the full video interview above with Oliver Stark and Aisha Hinds about the Season 8 finale, losing Bobby and Peter Krause, and their hopes for next year for their characters.

9-1-1, Season 9, Fall 2025, Thursdays, 8/7c, ABC