SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Thursday’s episode of “9-1-1” on ABC.
“9-1-1” returned after a two-week hiatus tonight with a pivotal, heartbreaking episode featuring the funeral of Captain Bobby Nash (Peter Krause). On the previous episode, Krause’s Bobby died unexpectedly after contracting a virus, and choosing to save team member Chimney (Kenneth Choi) rather than himself with the one available antidote. After giving a last goodbye to his wife, LAPD Sergeant Athena Grant (Angela Bassett), and his surrogate son Buck (Oliver Stark) through protective glass, Bobby kneeled down to pray and died.
When viewers tuned in to “9-1-1” on May 1 for the episode titled “The Last Alarm,” they were greeted with a surprise: Bobby and the Station 118 crew out on an emergency call we haven’t seen before. But we soon learn this is a flashback to eight years ago, just when the series began. On this call, Bobby and the team are trying to save a family from a house fire. They manage to rescue the mother, Leah, but can’t find her infant son, Mika, in time. Bobby looks at the mother in devestation as the house continues to burn.
In present day, Athena is touring a cemetery, and trying to plan Bobby’s funeral with her kids, but is having trouble deciding where he’d want to be laid to rest. Furthermore, officials have yet to release Bobby’s body to her, making it so she can’t bury him yet.
Later, Athena becomes furious with Chimney when she finds out he’s been calling the department nonstop to demand they release Bobby’s body. It seems Athena is worried that as soon as they bury Bobby, everyone will be able to move on from this death — and she doesn’t want that. But the body is now being released, and the funeral will be held the following Tuesday.
As Athena storms out of the fire station after railing at Chimney, she runs into a man who is looking for Bobby. Once she tells him Bobby is dead, and she is his widow, the man apologizes and explains he wanted to see Bobby in hopes he could help the man’s sister. It turns out this woman is Leah, the mother who lost her son in the fire eight years ago. Only Leah no longer accepts her son Mika has died, as she’s recently met a little boy named Cameron at a birthday party whom she thinks looks just like Mika.
She’s now convinced that Cameron is Mika, and Mika was kidnapped from her home on the night of the fire by his current mother, who Leah says was in the same prenatal yoga class as her. Leah attempted to abduct Cameron and is now in jail where Athena comes to see her. Athena is hesitant to believe Leah, but listens to her story about noticing Cameron had a similar birthmark to Mika’s. Athena says she does not think Leah is “crazy” and that if Mika is alive, she will bring him back to Leah.
Athena works late into the night back at her and Bobby’s home, which is under construction amid an incomplete renovation, trying to piece together what happened and avoiding calls from everyone. That’s when Ghost Bobby appears to her and asks “You gonna start a podcast?,” when he says her wall of “crazy” outlining the possible kidnapping.
“Aren’t you supposed to be busy planning my funeral? I hear it’s going to be big,” Bobby asks. Athena says the LAFD already has a template to follow for his “hero’s burial” and don’t need her to make choices. When Ghost Bobby pushes back on her, she lashes out: “You’re the one who locked himself in a lab to die. You don’t get to tell me how to spend my time.” He responds, “Ouch,” and she insists she has to re-investigate this case because it was important to Bobby and he can’t now.
Athena gets Leah’s permission to exume Mika’s grave, only to find there is no body inside. Leah’s brother says the baby’s remains were lost in the fire and they never told Leah. Athena then goes to Cameron’s house and gets him and his mother DNA tested against Leah. It turns out Cameron is not Mika., and Leah is devastated when Athena tells her the news. “For a moment, you let yourself believe that miracles were possible,” Athena says.
We then see another flashback to eight years ago, when Bobby comes to visit Leah in the hospital after the fire and tells her about losing his own two children in a fire years earlier, along with his first wife. She asks him how he gets through each day and Bobby says, “I live in the belief that one day I will see them again.”
Back in present day, it’s time for Bobby’s funeral. Everyone from the 118 is in attendance, including Eddie (Ryan Guzman), who has flown back for the occasion, and Chimney, whom Buck had to pursuade to come because Chimney is still so mad at Bobby for sacrificing himself.
After the service, Bobby’s team carries his casket to the fire truck for a large procession down the streets of Los Angeles, and a final alarm bell is sounded in the captain’s honor. Then, instead of going to an L.A. cemetery to bury him, Athena and her children board a plane with Bobby’s casket and take him back to St. Paul, Minnesota to be buried with his first wife, Marcy, and his two children, Robert Jr. and Brooke.
“Rest easy, you’re home now, baby,” Athena says as she kisses his casket just before the episode ends.
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