‘9-1-1’ Missed the Mark by Not Bringing Eddie Back for Bobby’s Final Episode
Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for 9-1-1 Season 8, Episode 15.Since moving to Texas in the episode “Voices,” Eddie Diaz (Ryan Guzman) has missed a lot, from his best friend Buck (Oliver Stark) attempting to remedy his absence by hanging out reconnecting with his ex to Hen’s (Aisha Hinds) birthday and Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Chim’s (Kenneth Choi) gender reveal. Not for lack of good reason, of course – Eddie went to Texas to fix his relationship with his son. But now, Eddie has missed something that will change the 118 forever: his captain, Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) just died in a shocking twist. And if you ask me, by leaving Eddie in Texas for the most major moment of the series so far, 9-1-1 really missed the mark.
Eddie’s Texas Arc is Resolved
Listen, I actually think Eddie going to Texas was a good thing for a number of reasons. For one, Eddie has shown again and again that his son Chris (Gavin McHugh) is the absolute most important thing in his life, but after traumatizing him with a look-alike of his dead mother, Eddie needed a chance to prove that once more. Most of Eddie’s arc since his introduction in Season 2 has been focused on his relationship with his son, starting off as a single father moving to LA after his time in the military, to figuring out whether reconciliation with Chris’ mom was the right thing, to eventually mourning her loss together.
While Eddie had major work to do to win his son’s trust back, Eddie really stepped up for Chris and has shown him that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to be a present father for him: even if it means being an Uber driver in El Paso and dealing with his overbearing family to spend time with Chris. In the episode “Invisible,” Eddie finally stood up for his son after Chris confessed that he wanted Eddie to “be (his) dad again.” Now that his relationship with Chris has been resolved, there’s no reason for Eddie to remain in Texas, much less so now that Eddie has been left out of major plot arcs.
Eddie Missing Bobby’s Death Was a Poor Choice
After Eddie’s Texas plotline was for the most part resolved in “Invisible,” Eddie missed the entirety of the recent 9-1-1: Contagion arc, entirely absent from both “Sick Day” and “Lab Rats.” This, to me, was very odd – these two episodes have been absolutely major to the series, and no one giving a thought to where Eddie is or how he would react to the scenario just feels lazy. In fact, having another medic in the room may have changed things. In a shocking twist, Bobby revealed at the conclusion of “Lab Rats” that his oxygen had been contaminated the entire episode, and quickly succumbed to the illness. 9-1-1’s first major character death will permanently change the show, and almost the entire 118 was there to react to and mourn his sudden loss, minus Eddie.
While Bobby may not have been as instrumental to Eddie’s life as he was Buck’s, Bobby and Eddie had their own unique bond as leader and mentor. Both had dealt with pasts that led them down dark paths, from Bobby’s early season arc of trying to make amends after causing an apartment fire to having lost a significant other, and Eddie’s time in a fight club. In fact, the characters have a lot of parallels: both come from a heavily faith-based background, and have left the 118 to deal with personal struggles before. The two share a deeply important relationship (as Bobby did with the whole team, making his death even more tragic) and leaving Eddie’s reaction to the most profound loss on the show relegated to off-screen detracts from the importance of Bobby’s death. Bobby dying has been the single biggest event to ever happen on 9-1-1, and leaving a core character out of it was an unfathomable decision.
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Leaving Eddie Out of Major Arcs Does No One Justice
Bobby was possibly the most fundamental character to 9-1-1, and this loss will be felt through the end of the series. Leaving a member of his beloved team out of the most major event to have ever happened in the series does neither Bobby nor Eddie justice as characters. While Eddie’s Texas arc has concluded, and it now feels out of character to bring him back for no good reason, it doesn’t make sense to leave Eddie out of any more major events in LA. It’s time for the writers to do the right thing and just bring Eddie back – even if it may be too late.
New episodes of 9-1-1 premiere on Thursday on ABC in the U.S.
- Release Date
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January 3, 2018
- Network
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ABC, FOX
- Showrunner
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Tim Minear
- Directors
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Bradley Buecker, David Grossman, Brenna Malloy, Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Jann Turner, Jennifer Lynch, Marita Grabiak, Sarah Boyd, John J. Gray, Barbara Brown, Robert M. Williams Jr., Kristen Reidel, Marcus Stokes, Tasha Smith, Millicent Shelton, Juan Carlos Coto, John Gray, Greg Sirota, Alonso Alvarez, James Wong, Kevin Hooks, Varda Bar-Kar, Shauna Duggins, Sharat Raju
- Writers
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Tim Minear, Andrew Meyers, Brad Falchuk, David Fury, Ryan Murphy, Christopher Monfette, Nadia Abass-Madden, Nicole Barraza Keim, Erica L. Anderson, Matthew Hodgson, Stacey R. Rose, Taylor Wong, Tonya Kong, Adam Penn
