This week’s episode does not pick up where we last saw our beloved 9-1-1 family. Instead, the timeline rewinds a little, and we start back on the plane right before Athena (Angela Bassett) and Dennis (Glenn Plummer) nearly miss their new flight, introducing this episode’s supporting characters:
- An entire high school girl’s volleyball team
- A woman and her emotional support dog vs the man who sits across from her in first-class
- An older couple on the way to meet their fifth grandchild
- A kid named Jem (Carter Young), who loves planes
From there, we move forward to the current timeline, picking back up at the 118. We last saw them with their Captain, Gerrard (Brian Thompson), bleeding out on the floor after being tackled to the ground by Buck (Oliver Stark), who saved him from a freak accident involving a circular saw blade. They get Gerrard in an ambulance and send him to the hospital. Buck admits he doesn’t know if he saved him or if he just let his anger get the best of him, but to the rest of the core four, it doesn’t matter because they’re temporarily free of their dictator. With Gerrard incapacitated (hopefully for a while), Hen (Aisha Hinds) is left as interim Captain. Her first order? A celebratory dance party.
The timeline shifts back to 1991 to Emmett’s (Jeff Pierre’s) funeral. We see a young Athena (Pepi Sonuga) sit beside Emmett’s mother before she eulogizes him. It’s a devastating reminder to audiences of the weight of the loss that Athena has carried for the last 30 years. Glaringly, Beatrice and Samuel, Athena’s parents, are nowhere to be seen. We know Beatrice wasn’t supportive of Athena’s decision to drop out of law school and become a police officer, but not showing up at the funeral of her only daughter’s fiancé is a new low.
On the plane, Dennis tells Athena he’s not taking the early release deal unless she gives him her blessing. Athena is rightly bemused, but who wouldn’t be? It’s an odd request to a woman whose fiancé you murdered and got away with for over twenty years.
She pivots the conversation to something that’s currently more pressing: why are men in suits trying to kill him? We then learn the backstory of Dennis’s deal. He agreed to become cellmates with a convicted pedophile and sex trafficker, Fulton, and was tasked with getting him to open up and start spilling names in exchange for his early release. Dennis succeeded in the task, and Fulton told Dennis about his ‘library’ where he keeps all of the names of the people involved in his trafficking rings.
Now that she has the information she needs, Athena makes sure the pilot calls into the airport to have the LAPD waiting for them at their gate for a safe escort. But of course, that’s when the small plane filled with bees from the end of last week’s episode collides with the commercial aircraft, descending into chaos and starting this week’s episode.
The planes collide head-on, and both pilots are incapacitated. The pilot of the commercial plane manages to level the plane but passes out, leaving the aircraft in the lurch. Thinking on her feet, Athena pulls out her cell phone and does the only logical thing in this situation.
She calls 9-1-1.
Josh (Bryan Safi) answers the call and, with Maddie’s (Jennifer Love Hewitt) help, gets Athena on the line with air traffic control. However, air traffic control’s solution is to wait until they call her back with further instructions because the plane is currently on auto-pilot, and they have nothing to worry about—as if there aren’t two holes in the plane.
Meanwhile, on the Hot Shots set, everyone’s asked to turn off their phone as cameras are about to roll, and Bobby (Peter Krause) complies, unknowingly cutting himself off from anyone who tries to reach him about Athena. The Hot Shots scene being filmed is reminiscent of the mothership series’ pilot, which heightens the absurdity of Bobby working here. As Technical Advisor, it’s Bobby’s job to point out inaccuracies, which unfortunately only annoys the director.
In the sky, Athena has to play EMT, tourniquet the co-pilot’s leg, and then deal with the hole at the back of the plane by moving all the passengers forward. Using the overheard intercom, she explains the situation and is honest with them about how it’s okay to be scared because she is too. It’s a scene that reminds the audience of what we already know – that Angela Bassett is a powerhouse.
Back at the 118, while Buck is concerned about the hospital not calling them about Gerrard, Maddie calls Chimney (Kenneth Choi), informing them that the 118 is being pulled from rotation for the rest of their shift to instead provide triage for those injured in the plane crash. She then drops the bomb that Athena is on the plane, leaving the core four in shocked silence.
Athena tries to call Bobby in the plane’s cockpit, only for it to go straight to voicemail. She tries not to break down while leaving a simple and equally devastating message, “Bobby… I love you, baby,” because it might be the last one she ever leaves him. Meanwhile, at the fire station, Buck is on the phone trying to frantically get someone on set to get a hold of Bobby.
- Chimney’s assignment: The girls’ volleyball team – One of the girls has a broken leg after being thrown around the plane. Chimney is on the phone with Dennis and talks him through creating a splint. It works until the girl’s leg swells due to compartment syndrome. Chimney instructs Dennis to find something sharp to cut the girl’s leg open, and he makes a shiv out of a toothbrush and a lighter.
- Hen’s assignment: Emotional support dog girl vs the guy sitting across from her – What first looks to be a panic attack ends up being a pulmonary embolism caused by high altitude. When giving him oxygen doesn’t work, Hen’s next steps are simple: find medication like Viagra because that will open the bloodstream, and administer it through a nebulizer. Luckily for them, an elderly couple on the plane has both items.
- Eddie’s assignment: The co-pilot – Eddie (Ryan Guzman) gets the most straightforward task of the episode because the co-pilot is still passed out. His blood pressure is stable, but they must leave him alone until he arrives.
In the cockpit, Athena is finally on the line with air traffic control and the flight instructor, who tells her how to get the plane to level out. However, she can’t figure out how to do so, but then Jem appears and helps her, becoming her co-captain. Dennis checks in on Athena, and she tells him that she will land the plane. Though it seems he doesn’t have much hope in her at first, he then says if anyone could land the plane, it’s her. However, they should probably call someone she trusts to tell them where Fulton’s little black book of names is.
Just as it seems, things are starting to calm down on the plane. The hole at the back opens up, and things escalate even further. As the flight instructor tells Athena what to do, Jem points out what buttons and levers to use. She needs to nosedive the plane manually but doesn’t know how, and our young hero is brave enough to try it—and succeeds!
Following this, all the local stations are deployed to the airport, and Buck leaves to get Bobby in person. Meanwhile, Bobby can finally check his phone and listen to Athena’s voicemail. Buck runs in and frantically calls Bobby’s name, spurring him into action. He steals the fire truck used for the show because if Bobby Nash is going to do anything on this earth, it’ll get to his wife while she’s in danger.
Just when it seems that Athena might be spared from landing the plane, the co-pilot regains consciousness and is lucid enough to land it, but not before he has a heart attack.
And that’s where we leave our beloved characters this week.
Total Bee count: 0, we’re over it
Bobby and Athena being the ideal middle-couple count: 2
Mustache mentions: 0
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