‘9-1-1’: 118’s New Captain, Buddie & 7 More Burning Questions for Season 9
9-1-1 didn’t end its eighth season on any major cliffhangers — let’s be honest, we couldn’t have handled one after losing Captain Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) three episodes prior — but it did leave quite a bit up in the air for the show to explore going forward. The good news: We already know there will be a Season 9!
Athena (Angela Bassett) and the 118 banded together to save the tenants of a high-rise — and each other — after it collapsed, and then a time jump revealed that Athena was selling the house she and Bobby were building, Eddie (Ryan Guzman) was moving back to Los Angeles, Buck (Oliver Stark) was looking for a new place, Hen (Aisha Hinds) and Karen (Tracie Thoms) finally adopted Mara, and Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) had her and Chimney’s (Kenneth Choi) son, Robert Nash Han, named for the man who saved his father’s life. What the finale didn’t confirm was who will be the new Cap … even if Hen did call someone just that after a stellar speech.
Below, we take a look at our burning questions for Season 9. Let us know yours in the comments section.
9-1-1, Season 9, Fall 2025, Thursdays, 8/7c, ABC
Is Chimney the new captain?
“Copy that, Cap,” Hen said after Chimney put his foot down and refused to let anyone move (Eddie) or transfer (Buck) in the finale. He certainly acted like a captain throughout the episode, from taking charge at the scene of the collapse as they rescued Graham, to the aforementioned speech.
“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,” Chimney said. “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?”
The chief had offered Hen the job but she turned it down. Now, we’ll just have to wait to see if the chief offers it to Chimney and what he wants to do. But we’re all for it!
If Chimney's not the new captain, who will be?
Maybe Chimney won’t want the job or the higher-ups won’t offer it to him for some reason. If that’s the case, will they bring in someone new? Will it be someone we’ve seen before? (Buck has wanted the job in the past when it was temporary with Bobby away, but Oliver Stark told TV Insider, “I think 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.”)
Could Buck and Eddie really get together?
The possibility of at least Buck having feelings for Eddie did come up this season, with the former’s ex-boyfriend Tommy (Lou Ferrigno Jr.) accusing him of just that. When Buck spoke with his sister Maddie, however, he insisted he didn’t.
“I just felt like it was something that had to be said, and it made sense for Tommy to say it. Whether Tommy’s right or not is almost not the point,” showrunner Tim Minear told TV Insider at the time. “It makes sense for his boyfriend to notice, you moved into the guy’s house and really he takes up a lot of space in your world and I think you might be in love with him, and Buck protests and kind of knocks that down. And also when Maddie asks him flat out, he says, it’s not like that. So you can either believe Buck or you don’t have to. It’s up to you.” He also said that there wasn’t anything else coming “not right away, certainly,” about potential feelings, and he was right.
Stark thought that Buck was being truthful about how he felt about Eddie. “He’s telling his truth in the moment, for sure. I don’t think he’s trying to lie and hide anything from [Maddie],” he said. “He’s never even considered this before. He’s telling his truth, for sure in that moment. This is something that’s been brought to him from Tommy and something that he was not, as I say, having any kind of prior thoughts about.”
And hey, a relationship with Eddie would fit what both Oliver Stark and Aisha Hinds told us they want to see for Buck when it comes to one.
“I would actually love to see Buck grounded in a relationship and experiencing it in the fullest way, someone who would probably extract that best side of him like an Abby [Connie Britton], but with the freedom that he now has to be the fullest version of himself with a Tommy,” shared Hinds. Stark agreed, calling those relationships the ones “that I think helped Buck find the kind of most authentic version of himself.”
How will Athena move on without Bobby?
It’s still hard to believe that we’re no longer going to be getting one of the best couples on TV next season. We’ve already seen that Athena’s not going to be living in the house that they were still in the process of building together when he died. We saw her throw herself back into work before his funeral. What will we see as time passes and she continues to grieve? She and Chimney did get past their issues — she couldn’t help but see the man who lived while her husband died — but will she at all struggle with looking at her friends, her husband’s coworkers?
Where will Buck live?
Buck had been subletting Eddie’s place since his best friend moved to Texas. But with Eddie and Christopher (Gavin McHugh) moving back, Buck needs a new place to live. He was starting to look at the end of the finale. (It’s unclear where he’s living in the meantime.) Will he find someplace that’s like his old loft? Eddie’s house? Something in-between? Will he still be looking when the new season begins?
How will the 118 continue to mourn?
The three episodes that followed Bobby’s death saw his loved ones mourning, but no matter how much time passes between seasons (likely the usual few months), we have a feeling they’ll still be affected. Will we see some sort of permanent memorial for Bobby at the 118, like 9-1-1: Lone Star had for the members of the 126 that died in the series premiere?
Will Ravi be sticking around on a more permanent basis?
Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody) started out as a probie and has certainly grown over the years. With Eddie in Texas, he returned to working with the 118. Eddie’s back, but should, say, Chimney become captain, they’ll need another firefighter, and it would be great to continue to see Ravi stick around. Even if he doesn’t, we need to continue to see him on a recurring basis.
How different will the show feel without Bobby?
For a show eight seasons in, there had been surprisingly very little change. Angela Bassett, Peter Krause, Oliver Stark, Kenneth Choi, and Aisha Hinds were all around starting with the series premiere. Ryan Guzman and Jennifer Love Hewitt joined the cast with the Season 2 premiere. And it hadn’t changed since until Bobby was killed off. Things have felt a bit off since, but these episodes were designed to, with the show displaying everyone’s grief and the emergencies against that. Now that we’ll be moving into a full season without Peter Krause and without Bobby, there has to be a new normal. But how different will that be?
Will there be crossovers with 9-1-1: Nashville?
Hopefully! Nashville star Jessica Capshaw told us she hopes there are. The two shows will be airing back-to-back, but considering how hard it was logistically (scheduling! budget!) to get crossovers between 9-1-1 and Lone Star, we’ll have to wait and see.
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