9-1-1 finally returns from its mid-season break with Season 8, Episode 9, “Sob Stories,” which showcases both the love Buck (Oliver Stark) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) have for each other, as well as Maddie’s (Jennifer Love Hewitt’s) ever-growing determination to do the right thing.
The episode begins just as harrowing as it ends: Maddie answers a 911 call from a man named John. He’s crying, pleading with Maddie to understand that he isn’t a monster, he just needed to take a girl (see also: kidnap) because she looked too nice.
Maddie attempts to convince John that she’ll call the police off if he lets Jayna (Chloe Csengery), the girl he’s kidnapped, go. He doesn’t fall for it and informs Maddie that he saw the cops arrive and can’t trust her like he thought he could.
Who Let The Dogs Out
We return to Buck and Eddie and The Moving™ of it all. Eddie is stuck in a year-long lease and must now sublet his home for the remainder of the time while he plans on being in Texas, where he’s put a down a down payment on a house…that he hasn’t even seen in person yet. Buck convinces Eddie to let him help find a new tenant, and thus begins the episode-long tension, which is deeply platonic and means nothing.
For our first emergency, an especially demonic person almost runs over a beagle (Icon dog actor Bailey). The dog is caught and brought to a shelter. Because this is 9-1-1, the shelter almost instantly catches fire, and the 118 arrives to fight the fire.
While Buck and Eddie are placed on search and rescue for the dogs, the beagle from earlier escapes from its kennel. Buck runs further into the flames to get him out. Eddie and Chim (Kenneth Choi) casually walk outside and let Bobby (Peter Krause) know that Buck is still inside as the roof starts to cave in. When the roof completely goes down, we get a shot some fictional firefighters wait a lifetime for: Buck walking out of the burning animal shelter holding a small beagle.
This Guy’s A Real Dick – Richard, That Is
On the darker side of things, Maddie and Athena (Angela Bassett) meet with Detective Braeburn (Abigail Spencer) to discuss this kidnapping. Athena reveals that she’s heard many stories of how the Detective has saved an incredible number of girls. Jayna should, hopefully, be no exception.
The three women discuss the case and recognize that there was nothing unique about John’s call to 911, Maddie reveals she went on Reddit and found out there was a similar call years ago. In a Portland, Oregon office, from a man claiming he had kidnapped a girl and that he didn’t want to do it. This leads us to a man Detective Braeburn has been trying to catch for several years – Richard, who lives down the road from the spot the girl in Portland was taken. Because Detective Braeburn has gone after him so many times with a lack of evidence, he’s filed a complaint, and she can no longer go near him… but Athena can.
Subletter? I Hardly Know Her!
There’s a montage of Eddie and Buck attempting to show off the the house to potential renters, and somehow, someway, Buck changes all of their minds within minutes. He even goes so far as to bring up Meth Lab Jim to a woman with children. Woof.
After Eddie accuses him of sabotaging the staging, Buck begins to leave but turns around to grab his forgotten phone—just in time to hear Eddie say that he has no ties to LA. That this was just a job opportunity, and everything important to him is in Texas. Double woof.
At the firehouse, tension mounts between Eddie and Buck as Buck reveals that he’s adopted the beagle he saved from the fire and has affectionately named him Blaze. Eddie almost instantly protests, stating that his loft doesn’t allow dogs. He also wonders why Buck didn’t talk to him about this. Buck is upset and lashes out, telling everyone that he’ll move if he has to, because “You’re not the only one who can do that, you know.”
As Eddie is forced to tell the team that he’s moving back to Texas. They congratulate him with hugs and he glares at Buck over his shoulder. It’s a terrible moment for people who feel secondhand embarrassment like it’s their own.
Siri, Play “Call Me” by Blondie
After Athena speaks to Richard’s ex, she learns where he’s staying, and Athena and Braeburn’s teams storm his place. While Richard and Jayna aren’t there, they find evidence that he left in a hurry and that someone was definitely being held there.
“John” AKA Richard calls Maddie back, raging about Detective Braeburn and her manhunt for him. He claims that his ex is a drug addict and they shouldn’t trust her. He also reveals that he knows who Maddie is, and that he knows her daughter’s name.
Maddie responds in the way any sane human would respond to a pedophile knowing their child’s name. She tells Richard that there’s only one way out of the turmoil he’s dealing with mentally. She says his answer is within the gun he’s holding in his hands. He knows the best way to relieve himself of everything is to use that on himself, not Jayna, or any other girl.
So he does. There’s a gunshot, a confirmation that Jayna is okay, and a scene where Billie Eilish’s “when the party’s over” plays. 9-1-1 got big money now that they’re on ABC, I see.
Athena can tell that Maddie is seriously beating herself up over seemingly causing this man’s death. She brings her to the station where Detective Braeburn reveals that they found trophies from past girls he’s kidnapped, including victims we knew about and victims we didn’t, in Richard’s toilet. It seems to ease Maddie as much as possible. Athena encourages her to go home, sit with her daughter, and have a glass of Scotch. Apparently, Athena doesn’t know Maddie is pregnant yet.
If You Love Something, Let It Go
Blaze the Beagle is entertaining Buck (say that three times fast) until a sound makes him jump up and run to the opposite end of the firehouse, where his actual family is waiting for Bingo the Beagle. Buck is forced to say goodbye, and it’s heartfelt and meaningful, until the alarm goes off and interrupts their goodbye, which surely isn’t foreshadowing… right?
Eddie is staging his house again for one final potential renter: Freddie. When Buck shows up, Eddie is furious. He calls Buck self-centered, insinuating that Buck is asking him to choose between Buck and Christopher (Gavin McHugh), which Buck is not. After Buck apologizes for “outing you in front of Cap and everyone else,” an insane choice of words, he reveals to Eddie that he’s Freddie—Freddie Fakeman—a very real person and not a made-up man.
Come on, Eddie. For real?
After Buck and Eddie hug it out at Hen’s (Aisha Hinds) insistence, they all make their way to Eddie’s going-away dinner. Man, this is really happening, huh?
The episode ends with Maddie in the kitchen finishing up the dishes and hearing the lock turn as the door opens. She greets Chim gently, turning at the last second, only to be immediately slammed in the head and knocked to the ground. Above her stands Detective Braeburn, apologizing and chloroforming Maddie.
See you next week, which I’m sure will be 47 minutes of Maddie frolicking in a garden with Blaze/Bingo the Beagle.
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