Spoiler Alert: This review contains spoilers for the October 30th episode of “9-1-1.”
Houston, no more problems.
Thursday’s episode of “9-1-1” saw Athena (Angela Bassett) and Hen (Aisha Hines) finally return to Earth after four episodes of traveling back and forth through space. What was supposed to be a quick back and forth as a reward for saving a billionaire’s life ends up being Hen and Athena’s own Apollo 13.
With the help of Henn’s physicist wife Karen (Tracy Thoms) and Athena’s willingness to risk her life again for those closest to her, “9-1-1″ avoids losing two major characters. “9-1-1” hasn’t been shy about killing off major characters, like Peter Krause’s Captain Bobby Nash last season.
“Listen, no one is safe at any moment, and we all know that,” Hines told Variety. “When you’re doing an intense adventure like going into space and learning the structure, the nature, the DNA of 9-1-1, you can send us to the safest place on Earth, and then there’s going to be some kind of massive accident. So it was like, ‘Where is this going?’
According to Hines, she and Bassett were not informed by “9-1-1” showrunner Tim Minear about their fate heading into multiple episodes, and instead the writers “slowly let it unfold for us.”
“I didn’t know what my next move was going to be until I was deep into it, and that just added to the whole adventure,” Hines said.
A key moment in this episode is when Athena insists that she go into space and fix the ship so everyone can get home. Athena tells her best friend Hen that Hen needs to live for Karen and their young children, but now that her husband Bobby is dead and the children are grown, Athena is willing to risk everything. This present moment occurs as viewers see a portion of Athena’s past. There, she loses her beloved partner in the field and grapples with how to move on and live without them.
“That was the moment I felt the structure of their friendship,” Hines said. “When I first signed on to be on this show, one of the things they told me was that Hen’s character was going to be best friends with Angela’s character. And that was the selling point for me. And I loved the structure of that friendship in that moment. I was watching her outside and struggling with knowing the danger, so I was like, ‘Are we going to die?’ So I was very happy to be able to get out of that. “I’m so glad you took us out into space. Athena is literally walking through space to save our lives. But even though she feels like there’s no purpose to living anymore, she’s reminding us that there’s more to life. And I’m so glad she did everything in her power to get us out of there.”
Courtesy of Disney/Christopher Willard
But what does this mean for Hen and Athena, who must return to normal life after an experience unlike any other in this world?
“It was certainly an incredibly traumatic experience, so bad that all Athena could do was fall to the ground and laugh hysterically, which became contagious,” Hines said. “That’s the question: Are you smiling because you don’t want to think about the fact that you actually faced death and the other emotions and real thoughts that come with that uncertainty? But the flip side of seeing that is that we’re even stronger now. We’re really at this point. What could possibly stop us from truly throwing us away?
Hines said Hen and Athena “may spend the rest of the season kind of wrestling with those two things,” adding: “Either that trauma overwhelms us, or we’re elated to be able to get down to earth and reunite with our families. So it’s us who take on the world at this point.”
