On 9-1-1, Season 8, Episode 8, “Wannabes,” the show ends the first half of the season with several storylines wrapped up and others just beginning.
The episode opens with Brad (Callum Blue) showing the 118 the latest episode of Hot Shots, eagerly anticipating their reactions. They’re… lackluster. Everyone “yes, and’s” Brad until he gets to Eddie (Ryan Guzman), who criticizes the episode as being unrealistic because they’d actually be rescuing people, not “standing around yapping.”
Incredible statement coming from the #3 yapper in the firehouse.
Eddie tries to apologize, telling him it’s Christopher’s (Gavin McHugh) favorite show and that he knows people will love it, but the damage is done. Brad leaves the room pouting, with Buck (Oliver Stark), Chim (Kenneth Choi), Hen (Aisha Hinds), and Bobby (Peter Krause) sharing disappointed looks regarding Eddie.
Elsewhere, a self-proclaimed “Cart Cop” (Sam Roach) is filming people who don’t return their carts to the corrals in a supermarket parking lot. As expected, his actions quickly backfire, and people are upset.
Cart(e) Blanche
What starts as one man urging a woman to do the right thing ends in a traffic jam, a rear-end collision, and the LAPD being called. Athena (Angela Bassett) shows up, instantly realizing this scenario is blown out of proportion, and attempts to right the situation.
After a man threatens to beat up Cart Cop, Athena reprimands him and demands that everyone leave the scene. She tells the woman who started it to just return her cart to the corral, an insane thing for the LAPD to have to tell you.
Cart Cop begins walking away with Athena, thanking her for her backup. Which was definitely her intention when she came to the scene.
Eddie (finally!) decides to call Christopher, and he tells him about working with Brad immediately. He butters Christopher up by saying he can get Brad’s autograph for Chris and hang it on his wall. Chris asks Eddie to send him the autograph, and Eddie realizes he doesn’t want to hang it in his room in LA. He wants it with him in Texas.
Eddie learns that Chris will soon be participating in a chess tournament. It should be noted that Eddie’s parents aren’t rushing to keep Eddie updated on his son, whom they’re taking care of. The call disconnects as he reminds Chris to tell Abuelita to send photos. Woof.
Don’t Forget Your Umbrella
To jumpstart our emergencies, a woman is seen pulling into traffic and quickly being cut off by a car coming at her full speed. It narrowly misses her and slams into a construction site connected to the sewers.
When the 118 arrive, multiple cars and several onlookers are involved. Buck and Eddie attempt to save a couple from a car filling with water. They realize the vehicle is too jammed. It must be towed out to rescue the driver, as her leg is stuck under the steering wheel.
Once the vehicle is towed and drained, the couple escapes, and their job with them is done. While the 118 rescues the couple, Brad has been lurking around the scene. He finds a woman trapped in a car. Instead of waiting until he can get proper help, he smashes the window and extricates the woman.
At the moment, Bobby can’t do much except look on as multiple people have now recognized Brad. After doling out orders to the rest of the team back at the firehouse, Bobby lays into Brad. Bobby explains that what he did was stupid and reckless. He could’ve paralyzed that woman if she had a spinal injury he didn’t know about.
Bobby tells Brad that he’s going to wax and buff the firetruck bumper until he says otherwise. Brad casually responds, “Yes, Bob!” and Bobby’s had it.
“In this firehouse, it’s Captain Nash.” One chance, Mr. Nash.
On the Cart Cop end of things, security finds him stuffed into a grocery cart in the back of the store’s parking lot, unconscious. Security called 911, and Hen and Chim got him back after a sternum rub, thankfully.
When Cart Cop wakes up at the hospital, Athena and Detective Romero (Danny Nucci) are there to discuss what happened with him. The two find out that Graham’s family no longer speaks to him. Then, he links them to his YouTube account so they can find any possible suspects in the footage. Spoiler alert: there’s a lot of them.
There’s No Brad In Team
Back at the firehouse, Brad and Eddie discuss whether Brad is a team member. Eddie opens up to Brad about Christopher being in Texas. Brad reveals that he has a son in the UK he hasn’t seen since the child was nine and that he’s still awaiting an invitation to the wedding he knows is coming up.
I hope you never get it, deadbeat.
Brad signs a photo of him for Christopher, encouraging Eddie not to let the gap between them grow any bigger. Eddie claims that it’s only been three months since Christopher went to Texas, which is surely inaccurate with the current timeline. But what do I know?
At the police station, Athena interviews anyone who could be suspected of jumping Graham. While Athena clearly thinks she doesn’t get paid enough to deal with this nonsense, I am having a great time watching her loosely interrogate potential suspects because they chose not to return their cart to the corral.
The 118 is called to a scene on an overpass where a man is standing on the ledge debating jumping. After Buck and Eddie get nowhere with the jumper, he suddenly recognizes Brad. Bobby encourages Brad to step away from the selfies (which he is, in fact, taking at the scene of an attempted suicide) and be a real hero.
Brad speaks with the man and quickly learns he’s a Hotshots fan. He tells Brad how he binged the first three seasons after his wife left him and that Brad is his comfort captain. Real and relatable, sir.
The two quote a speech from Brad’s Hot Shots character. Then, the man steps off the ledge – only after Brad promises he’ll return to the show and escape his coma.
Buck’s Bread Hour
Once that chaos has worn off, we jump to Eddie’s home, where he’s looking at houses on his iPad. Buck knocks, then enters without waiting for Eddie to open the door. He brings Eddie an entire basket of bread because he almost called Tommy and couldn’t stop baking.
Eddie tries to act casual when flipping the iPad over so Buck won’t see houses, but Buck isn’t as dumb as he seems. Buck grabs the iPad and sees that Eddie is looking at houses. Eddie is forced to tell him that he’s looking at homes… in El Paso, Texas.
He tells Buck that he’s got a virtual appointment with a real estate agent scheduled for, well, now and that he wasn’t expecting Buck. Instead of hightailing it out of there, Buck walks to the living room, sits, and tells Eddie he’ll be his wingman for the meeting.
A real estate wingman. That is definitely a thing and not something made up.
As Eddie gets Buck a cup of coffee, Buck looks off into the distance with a face that will have certain fans discussing and analyzing for the entirety of the hiatus.
Athena, back at the supermarket where the infamous Cart Cop was jumped, is finally figuring out who hurt him. She figures out that Ira (Warren Sweeney), the actual cart coraller, subtly lied about his shoe size so Athena wouldn’t connect the shoeprint on Graham’s ’s face back to him.
He claims he wanted Graham out of the picture because he was taking Ira’s job, and Ira “had to put his foot down.” 10/10 pun.
When she goes back to visit Graham, Athena tells him that Ira isn’t actually Ira, and the cops want him for jumping parole in North Dakota for felony assault. The two discuss the real meaning of the Cart Cop: not the carts, but what the carts bring out in us.
They discuss that though one is an actual member of law enforcement, they both want people to choose to do the right thing. After Graham suggests that he could be a police officer, Athena lets him down with a gentle “no” and gives him the vest for when he’s healed and can become the actual cart coraller at the supermarket.
To end the episode, we’re back on the set of Hot Shots – Brad’s character is waking up from his coma! But wait! Who’s the doctor who greets him as he wakes up?! Chim, of course! And the nurses in the room monitoring him? Buck and Eddie!
I already know the three of them will be so insufferable when that episode airs. They’re going to have a watch party and everything.
So, Brad’s back on set, Bobby is back at the firehouse, and all is well in the world of the 118. Except for, you know, an integral member potentially moving halfway across the country. Now we just have to wait three months to see what happens!
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