‘9-1-1: Nashville’: Chris O’Donnell Explains Don’s Dislike of Rogue & Blythe’s Decision

A swarm of murder hornets, near-drowning in blood … must be a 9-1-1 show! 9-1-1: Nashville Season 2 is kicking off with the plagues coming to Music City, and fortunately, there’s a new detective in town, Rogue Kelly (Ryan Phillippe), to investigate. But Don (Chris O’Donnell) makes it very clear that he’s not a fan, even if everyone else is. TV Insider spoke with Chris O’Donnell about that, the state of Don and Blythe’s (Jessica Capshaw) marriage with the Dixie (LeAnn Rimes) of it all, and more. Warning: Spoilers for the 9-1-1: Nashville Season 2 premiere ahead!

From their first meeting, over the murder hornets swarming a museum gallery and Rogue walking around the scene, showing off what he knows, Don just doesn’t like the detective — even when he’s the first to notice something’s wrong with the captain. Don’s stung, and if not for Rogue, it would’ve been worse than it is. He’s going to be fine. Ryan (Michael Provost), meanwhile, is very much intrigued by Rogue and his investigation, even inviting the detective to join the family brunch … where he accidentally informs everyone of what Don and Blythe are keeping quiet due to his skills of observation: their bed divorce, in the aftermath of Don briefly being willing to go to Dixie to stop her from releasing diss tracks about his wife. (It’s her decision; she’s not sleeping well.) Don asks for the room and warns him to tread lightly when it comes to his family … while Rogue is choking on his food, before giving him the Heimlich. What Rogue doesn’t pick up on at the brunch is that Ryan and Sam (MacKenzie Porter) are hiding that she’s pregnant and has cancer.

As for the plagues, pieces are found in the hornets’ nest that, when assembled, indicate that it’s just the beginning: “I will send swarms upon you and upon your people and all your houses.” Then, after saving a woman from drowning in blood, Don’s knowledge of animal blood leads him and Rogue to a butcher shop nearby; someone redirected the blood. The person also left behind another Bible page about the plagues.

Below, Chris O’Donnell breaks down the premiere, Don’s dislike of Rogue, and more.

What is it about Rogue that’s just rubbing Don the wrong way? Because he does not like this guy even after he helps save his life.

Chris O’Donnell: Yeah, at first he’s just, I think kind of miffed the way this guy just goes about his business and doesn’t exactly follow protocol, that sort of thing. But then he also doesn’t follow protocol of maybe social graces amongst his family and blurting out whatever pops into his mind. So there’s a little adjustment going on here for these two. They got to settle into each other, I suppose.

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And Don just has fun when Rogue is choking. He’s just like, “You know what? I’m going to take advantage of this moment.”

Yeah, I think Don feels pretty good that he’s confident that he’s going to be able to help him out, but he wants to get his message across that the way he’s handling himself in his house is just not acceptable.

Speaking of the confidence though, Don is so smug when he can tell Rogue that it’s animal blood near the end of the episode. That felt good, right? Especially after everything else before it.

I guess that’s one of the perks of him living down in Nashville. He spent some time around livestock is what it sounds like. Yeah, I mean, Rogue likes to go about his business that he’s one step ahead of everybody, and I think he’s met somebody in Don that is kind of along the same lines.

But they’re going to have to put their problems aside because there are these plagues that are now plaguing Nashville. First of all, what does Don think of all of that? Because this is completely out there. It’s wild.

Don is thinking, you’re nuts to have this conspiracy theory and these are just coincidences. And as the season rolls on here, we’ll see that there might be a little bit more to it and that maybe Rogue’s not completely crazy here because there seems to be a series of disasters that are plaguing the city, so to speak.

How’s working together going to go for those two? What’s it going to take for them to warm up to each other?

Well, we’ll have to see. I mean, they’re going to have to get their — I think once their interests are aligned, I think it makes it a lot easier to work. But I think that right now, certainly in this first episode, it’s a get to know you period. And I think that Rogue’s coming in a little brash for Don’s liking.

Disney/Jake Giles Netter

But then there’s the bed divorce for Don and Blythe, which she says is her trying to save the marriage. So how is Don feeling about that, considering he is the one who did almost go to Dixie’s that day?

Well, he almost went to Dixie’s because he was trying to save the situation that they had gotten themselves into, but he’s not happy about it. He doesn’t want to get kicked out of his bedroom, but he’s sensitive enough to realize this is important to his wife and that he will do whatever it takes to regain her trust and make her feel better and sleep at night if that’s what it takes. But he’s not thrilled with the idea of a bed divorce, I can tell you that.

How is he feeling about their marriage at this point?

I think he feels a little guilty that he actually considered going back to Dixie for whatever his reason may have been. I think he still has regrets about that and feels bad about how that has caused Blythe to feel. And his family and his relationship with his wife is the most important thing in life, and he will do what it takes to keep that intact.

So what are we going to see from Don when it comes to their marriage and everything? Because we know Blythe is in court mandated therapy right now. Is Don willing to give therapy a try? What’s he going to be doing to fight for their marriage?

Well, like I said, I think he’ll do what he needs to do to keep the marriage strong. It may not be court-mandated for him, but it seems to be wife and Blythe mandated, which may be more powerful, especially when it comes to the bedroom. So I think he’ll do what he needs to do.

But then what’s sure to be good is what we get from Don and Dixie with this, because those two always cross paths, even if he’s trying to stay away from her. So what can you say about what we’ll see from Don and Dixie this season?

It’s to be continued. I think that she’s kind of like the plague herself. She’s just kind of everywhere in Don’s life and he can’t seem to get away from her, but they have a long history together. She played an important role in his life at one point, and she keeps turning up. And they share a child together, which is not a child, but a grown man, but they have a child together and they will forever be bonded by that.

Speaking of, Don and Blue (Hunter McVey) seem to be in a good place, at least at the start of this season.

Yeah. I think that Blue is settled in as a firefighter and really learning the ropes and settling in as part of the family.

But on the other hand, it seems like Ryan likes Rogue and is intrigued by what Rogue is doing. So how does Don feel about that?

Yeah, Ryan’s got a little man crush on Rogue when he gets there, and I think Don’s a little confused by that and just, what is so special about this guy? I think that probably a normal reaction for a father of a son who’s always looked up to him, all of a sudden there’s somebody else that he’s kind of enamored with and maybe takes it a little bit the wrong way, but we’ll see where that heads.

Yeah, it seems like everyone in the family kind of likes Rogue though, because even Cammie (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) at the brunch was finding common ground. It just seems like everyone in Don’s life is liking this guy.

Well, yeah, they’ve definitely set it up to go in a lot of different directions. It’d be interesting to see where it goes.

Disney/Connie Chornuk

The premiere also set up this thing with Don’s health, and Don is not really happy about the recommendation from Sam, but how much are we going to be seeing that as part of Don talk this season? Is this something we need to be worried about?

I don’t know how much of it we need to be necessarily worried about as we do. I mean, I think that people will get a kick out of — Don’s just getting a little frustrated with people in his business, frankly. I think that as far as he’s concerned, he takes good care of himself and everyone can mind their own damn business, but that’s what happens in families. Kids start to pipe in about what they think you should be doing, and people have their own opinions, so it always makes for some fun.

What can you tease about what’s next with the plagues?

Well, they don’t get any smaller, let me tell you that. I just am constantly amused by the storylines they came up with, because for me doing a show like this, I try and root the family relationships and all of that in as much reality as possible. And then sometimes you’re taken out of it with these insane emergencies and disasters that come up. But the 113 will be there when they need us.

What about any crossovers with 9-1-1? Are we going to get any more of that?

Yeah, I know that they’re definitely always trying to get the shows to cross over as much as possible. Something that the fans really love. I mean, I kind of joked about it when we started out. I don’t know what a fire department in Nashville and a fire department in L.A. would be doing together, but they found a way last year with the firefighter games. And now that there are relationships between the two houses, I’m sure that there will be incidents where they can get us together. So I look forward to that. That’s always enjoyable.

9-1-1: Nashville, Thursdays, 9/8c, ABC