‘9-1-1: Nashville’ Boss Introduces Ryan Phillippe’s Character & Teases Sparks With Blythe

When 9-1-1: Nashville returns for its second season, it will do so with a new series regular, Ryan Phillippe playing a New York detective who moves to Nashville. When TV Insider spoke with showrunner Rashad Raisani about the Season 1 finale, we of course had to get intel on this new character.

So far, we know Phillippe’s detective is “a seductive bad boy with a past” who’s just going to add to the drama in these first responders’ lives. He’s also going to be leading an investigation into “a mysterious criminal tormenting Nashville on a biblical scale.” Right now, Raisani said, they’re likely going to have his character not have a history with any of the main characters, or at least not a major one.

“There may be a moment where he realizes that he and Blythe [Jessica Capshaw] might have crossed paths at one point, but he has no deep history. He’ll be playing this sort of maverick detective who comes in and he’s kind of a disruptor in a different way, and he’ll get in Don’s [Chris O’Donnell] craw, but he’ll also have a real affinity and friendship with Ryan [Michael Provost], Don’s son. And it will start almost this weird father-son triangle with somebody else,” he shared.

It’s possible that his and Capshaw’s characters “maybe went on a date or two back when she was back east in college,” Raisani continued. “We’re still playing these first couple episodes [of Season 2] to see if it’s better if he is just a completely fresh face or if it helps us to have a little backstory. So I would say we may end up just playing it that he is a fresh [face]. There will be some sparks though, I will tell you that much. It just depends if it’s a first impression or if it’s maybe a rekindling.” And this will be coming as Blythe and Don are going to be on shaky ground after the Season 1 finale saw her find out he was willing to sleep with Dixie (LeAnn Rimes) as part of his ex’s terms to not release another diss track about his wife.

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The addition of Phillippe’s character will allow Nashville to do what 9-1-1 and Lone Star have by bringing in a series regular on the police side. It will also include a major arc involving the aforementioned criminal in the city who “leads to some great calamities,” with his character “the tip of the spear dealing with that crisis,” according to the showrunner.

“Ryan Murphy had this great inspiration about this criminal who’s creating 9-1-1 calamities for our firefighters and our first responders assault, but there’s a criminal element underneath it,” he explained. “And so then the police can get involved and our teams can work together with Ryan Phillippe’s character to get to the bottom of this.”

He says the attacks of this criminal, who is the other major new character being introduced in Season 2 in addition to Phillippe’s and someone coming in as Cammie’s (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) boss in dispatch, are “incredibly biblical in scope and I think a very almost True Detective-y kind of feel for us, which we’re just really excited to see that to go into a bit more of a spookier, creepier place, but still having the big scope that we’re used to and our character dynamics that we’ve really grown into.”

What are you hoping to see from Ryan Phillippe’s character? Let us know in the comments section below.

9-1-1: Nashville, Season 2, TBA, ABC