It’s been two weeks since 9-1-1 killed off its fearless fire captain Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) in a show-altering twist that devastated fans. Following the heartbreaking loss, Krause said goodbye to the series in a public letter and appeared on Good Morning America. Co-creator and showrunner Tim Minear explained why he made the controversial call to kill off a core character for the first time in eight seasons. And 9-1-1 cast members — including Bassett and Choi — posted touching tributes to Krause on social media in what seemed like a united sendoff.
Normally, viewers would see this elaborate level of post-mort press, read Minear’s interviews, take the episode at face value, and accept that Bobby is gone for good. But 9-1-1 isn’t like other shows. From the start, Ryan Murphy’s quintessential absurdism has run deep, and against all odds, characters have survived utterly outrageous emergencies. Krause himself once told Decider, “I’ve likened the show to a comic book about first responders come to life. It’s amazing when you look back on all the different things these characters lived through. The character Buck, for instance, had an entire fire engine land on his leg and he’s walking just fine. So it’s a little bit like a Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoon. We walk away from these incredible injuries all the time.” So after eight seasons of that, fans are understandably struggling to embrace realism.
Though all logical signs suggested the great Bobby Nash is DEAD dead at the end of Episode 815, given the show’s history and several unshakable (admittedly convincing) theories, fans believed that Cap could defy the odds and return to screens ALIVE. Since we never actually laid eyes on Bobby’s corpse or saw his casket lowered into the ground at the end of 9-1-1 Season 8, Episode 16, “The Last Alarm,” I found myself delusionally asking, “What if — despite the press, despite the funeral, the goodbyes, the casket, the finality of it all — Bobby can still come back to life before Season 8 ends?” And then I thought, “WHY ARE YOU THINKING THIS?!”
Before Bobby’s funeral, Athena comforted a mother who was clinging to hope that her late son was still alive by saying, “I think you were overcome by grief, and for a moment you let yourself believe that miracles were possible.” Given the context of the episode, the words sounded like something Athena — and more directly, 9-1-1 fans who believed Bobby could live — needed to hear as well. 9-1-1 was actively shutting down a miracle for Bobby. But after making fans believe in miracles for eight straight seasons, it wasn’t that easy to accept.
There’s a very good — almost certain — chance that Minear permanently offed Captain Bobby Nash, Krause is leaving the show ahead of Season 9, and everyone involved with the series has been truthful about the character and actor departures all along. But below are 10 reasons why it’s understandable fans still wish Bobby could return next week. (Again, don’t get your hopes up. Things look BLEAK. We’re just running though potential scenarios.)
-
The Buried Alive Script Leak
After *checks notes* everything that’s transpired over the past month, the most damning piece of potential evidence for Bobby’s potential resurrection is still the April Fool’s Day script leak, which showed Maddie answering a 911 call from Bobby (in a coffin), who said, “I’m being buried alive!” Was the script a joke gone wrong? Was it a real scene from the show that we have yet to witness? And when Tim Minear told Deadline that he didn’t know where the page came from, was that fact or fiction?
When the same script that Oliver Stark posted was also seen in one of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Instagram Stories, a 9-1-1 fan tried to decipher it and was able to make out a few lines, including Athena saying, “Rest easy” to Bobby’s coffin. (And this actually happened in Episode 816!) While we didn’t see Bobby get buried alive and call 9-1-1 like “The Last Alarm” script linked above suggested, we also didn’t see the casket lowered into the ground. So is there a chance that the leaked 911 call was bumped to Episode 817 and we could get the greatest cold open of all time: Bobby calling 911 from his coffin?! A Bobby Nash resurrection has always felt so incredibly 9-1-1. But if this was a joke from the start, I just want to know WHY?
-
Those Haunting Hozier Lyrics
9-1-1: Contagion‘s devastating Season 8, Episode 15 death/goodbye scene was set to Hozier’s “Work Song,” which, in addition to getting fans fully in their feels, features the lyrics, “When my time comes around, lay me gently in the cold, dark earth” along with “No grave could hold my body down, I’ll crawl home to her.” So is Bobby about to crawl out of his grave and head home to Athena?! Or were we all misled into Swiftie-level detail-parsing too close to the sun?!
-
The Empty Casket Theory
On top of 9-1-1 not showing Bobby’s body in his casket, Episode 816’s central emergency also saw Athena exhuming a baby’s grave to obtain a DNA sample, opening the casket, and discovering that it was EMPTY. Could that be foreshadowing an empty casket for Bobby as well? Here’s why fans think Bobby’s body might not be where Athena and the 118 think it is…
-
Superstrain Unknowns And Possible Government Interference
Considering rogue lab worker Moira (Bridget Regan) modified a Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) strain and only tested it on a rat prior to the 118’s exposure, a lot about the deadly superstrain remains unknown. Athena said that federal and state authorities kept Bobby’s body for nearly two weeks, and the only reason the remains were released to in a semi-timely fashion is because Chimney — under the impression he was doing Athena a favor — called to complain about the delay. So could the super strain mimic death? And would authorities really have released a body that was exposed to an unprecedented deadly virus before they were ready? Or did Athena receive an empty casket?
-
The Coma Theory
If I’m being honest, I fully moved on from this theory after seeing how Athena-focused Episode 816 was, but 9-1-1 episodes past taught fans that there could be a (slim) chance that Bobby’s death is part of a coma/dream sequence. After Chimney was so close to death in Episode 815 and appeared to see a flash of white before he was rescued, some fans wondered if the events that followed — including Bobby’s death — were all in Chim’s (or Bobby’s) head. But, after 816, this isn’t feeling like a contender anymore.
-
The Funeral Procession (Crucially, The Laughter!)
In past articles, we’ve discussed how odd it was to see a scene as major as Bobby Nash’s funeral procession filmed out in the open, which spoiled the show’s first major death well in advance. After Bobby’s death in 815, Minear told Deadline that the team had their “fingers crossed” that the grand funeral procession production “wouldn’t leak” and claimed they were “being incredibly naive” in “underestimat[ing] the interest of the fans out there,” which still felt incredibly weird. But the weirdest part is how HAPPY the cast was taking photos by Bobby’s casket. Would they really be that smiley if they knew their time with Krause was through? What the heck? We’re HURTING.
-
The Wrath Of Khan Of It All
During the Bobby post-mort press, Minear also told Deadline that 9-1-1: Contagion “felt like a real opportunity to give somebody an epic Wrath of Khan-like death.” When Bobby and Athena touched hands through the glass before his death in Episode 815, fans of the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan picked up on the parallels to a similar scene between Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) after Spock sacrificed himself in a radioactive chamber, which resulted in his death. (Sound familiar?!) Star Trek fans also pointed out that Spock came back to life in the following film, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, so who’s to say 9-1-1 couldn’t resurrect Bobby, too?! And if 9-1-1 doesn’t go the full Wrath of Khan route, then WHY? Another major missed opportunity.
-
Bobby’s Rare Blood
Need another reminder of Bobby’s strength? In Season 1, we learned that Cap has rare blood that can help pregnant women with rhesus disease (incompatible blood between a mother and her baby). Could that rare blood have also helped Bobby recover from Moira’s super strain if Tim WANTED? Dare I say another missed opp.
-
Hotshots Foreshadowing
Another long-held theory regarding Bobby’s death is that it ties back to Hotshots, the fictional show which Bobby (and then Gerrard) worked on in Season 8A. Ahead of Episode 815, Oliver Stark reportedly posted and deleted a photo of Bobby hugging Brad to IG stories, which sparked speculation. Gerrard made a somber return to assist the 118 in Episode 816, and a photo of Brad and Bobby was spotted on his in memoriam table, but the episode didn’t seem noticeably Hotshots related. That said, fans still wonder if the fictional series foreshadowed Bobby’s return.
In Minear’s interview with Deadline, when asked if he adjusted Bobby’s story arc throughout the season to ensure he had “a proper sendoff,” the showrunner said, “Yes, a little bit actually. I’d really been thinking about it back during the first part of the season. There’s a moment in the first part of the season when Brad Torrence, the Hotshots [TV show] star, says that his captain is never going to wake up from his coma, and a fan says, you can’t kill him off, he’s the father figure of the firehouse. So that was me hinting a little bit about where I might be going.”
For those who need a refresher, Brad did miraculously wake from his coma after hearing how much that Hotshots fan cared. So, again, who’s to say that Bobby can’t miraculously come back to life, too? And if not, WHY!? The storyline was right there!
-
Conflicting Stories And Seemingly Endless Chaos
Since Bobby’s funeral procession leaked online at the end of March, it feels like 9-1-1 fans have been dealing with constant emotional whiplash and information overload. Since Bobby died in Episode 815, there have been a number of conflicting comments from those involved with the show, confusing (occasionally even edited or deleted) social posts about Bobby/Peter, and more general chaos surrounding the shocking storyline.
Most recently, ahead of Episode 816, Deadline published an interview with Disney TV Studios Chief Eric Schrier that raised some eyebrows. When asked if he was involved in the decision to kill off Krause’s character, Schrier said, “That was a decision that I was not involved in, that was [showrunner] Tim Minear, Ryan Murphy and everyone else involved in that show. So I’ll leave it to that.”
The comment caught fans off guard, because in a previous interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Minear said, “I had to clear it with the network and the studio. I had to pitch them out the whole story. Everyone was very nervous. And once I got everybody on board, I talked to [co-creator] Ryan Murphy about it, and once everybody was on board and Peter was on board, then I had to start calling the cast one by one.”
So which is it? Are everyone’s stories misaligned because there’s not a permanent death at play? Or are people simply flustered when addressing the topic after seeing the distraught reaction from fans? As always, only time will tell. But if Bobby’s really dead, why does the list of fan theories go on and on and on??? *screams*
Have another Maybe Bobby Isn’t Dead Forever theory you’d like to share? Or have you officially given up hope?
New episodes of 9-1-1 Season 8 premiere 8:00 p.m. ET on Thursdays with next-day streaming on Hulu.
Read the full article here
