Spoilers ahead!
After finishing the latest 9-1-1 episode, I had to sit by myself for a little while, as this episode left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I had so much fun with some things, surprisingly laughing out loud at many scenes. On the other hand, this is a comeback of the Athena cop-related plots that always leave me a little weirded out.
I will explain why briefly, but let me recap the episode first. Athena (Angela Bassett) gets injured in the middle of an attempt to catch a criminal called Flash Rob, who organizes flash mobs in which people commit robberies. After that, still injured, she is assigned to mentor the rookie Sparks (Zach Tinker). While they work together to catch Flash Rob, Athena’s intuition tells her that something’s off about Sparks, in a situation that reminded me of how Hen (Aisha Hinds) felt about Jonah (the paramedic who happened to be a serial killer from season 5 played by Bryce Durfee.) That’s also when Athena begins to question her abilities, thinking that maybe she’s not fit for the job anymore.
This is not the first time this series has chosen to focus on the cop-related side of things. There are plenty of previous episodes devoted to exploring Athena’s profession, and they usually try to both praise and criticize what cops do, usually framing Athena as this exemplary professional in opposition to the bad cop of the week. The most remarkable example for me is the fifth episode of season 3, Rage, in which Athena’s ex-husband Michael (former regular Rockmond Dunbar) has a run-in with racist cops that almost ends with Harry (then played by former regular Marcanthonee Reis) being shot. That starts a huge storyline about police brutality and racism within the Grant-Nash family — Athena sees how this situation scared her children and is forced to reconsider how she sees the role of police officers in the larger scheme of things.
“Hotshots” – 9-1-1. Pictured: Angela Bassett as Athena. Photo: Ray Mickshaw/ABC © 2024 Disney. All rights reserved.
This week parallels that situation in a way, as Sparks has a run-in with a woman, and this situation ends up with the said woman wounded after being shot by Sparks, almost dying had Athena not interfered. All of that happened to move forward the Athena storyline: she may be getting older and not in great physical shape, but her wisdom is stronger than ever and her intuition can help the younger rookies. That’s why she tells Capt. Elaine Maynard (Claudia Christian) she’s open to mentoring another rookie in the future, willing to not be a lone wolf anymore.
The positive side of this storyline: getting Athena in that wonderful wig and costume in the initial scene; the long-awaited comeback of Athena and Hen as besties having some tea together; it’s always a pleasure to watch an episode full of Angela Bassett scenes, especially with someone as charismatic as Zach Tinker.
The downsides: this show is at its best when it’s silly, over-the-top, over-dramatic, but overall just fun. These heavier storylines that are easily relatable to real-world problems, I think they need to be well-planned, and they probably need a couple of episodes to work. Otherwise, it feels a bit hypocritical: I try to not take it too seriously when Athena abuses her power (which happens a lot in this show, but let’s just take what she did to Amir in the seventh season finale as an example) because it’s just a silly show, etc. But then you have this episode that’s all about abuse of power and that’s not used to make Athena look at herself and her past actions. On the contrary, she’s supposed to be a role model, and I would even say that in the end, she’s kinda sorry for Sparks. I mean… Is this really a comment on police brutality at this point? I think the message is all over the place, and I would rather not have this kind of sensitive issue tackled on the show than have it this way.
“Hotshots” – 9-1-1. Pictured: Peter Krause as Bobby, Callum Blue as Brad. Photo: Ray Mickshaw/ABC © 2024 Disney. All rights reserved.
About Athena as a mentor in the future, I think there’s a potential fun story there, but part of me would love to see Athena interacting more with different main characters from the 118. At this point, she has many storylines with Bobby (Peter Krause), sometimes having storylines with her children (more frequent in past seasons) and Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) as well. Her friendship with Hen made a welcome comeback during this one, and I would love these two to have a longer storyline. Or maybe they could try something new and give us Athena and Chimney (Kenneth Choi), or Athena and Eddie (Ryan Guzman), and/or Christopher (Gavin McHugh)... I don’t know, I just think that as the main character of this show, it’d be so cool to have her bonding with characters she usually doesn’t interact with much instead of yet again introducing a new recurring character to be her partner. That's when I miss May (former regular Corinne Massiah) and Harry (now played by Elijah M. Cooper) the most, by the way; they were perfect counterparts to Athena in past seasons, and the presence of any of them in this episode would have improved it a lot.
Meanwhile, Bobby and the 118 return to the set of HOT SHOTS — and that’s because Brad (Callum Blue) is still obsessed with Bobby, being perhaps Gerrard’s (Brian Thompson) biggest hater. It was nice having the 118 inside the set of this fictional firefighter show; I think they missed the opportunity to go full meta here, which could have been interesting. Instead, the episode focuses on Brad trying to have Bobby back on set, creating conflict with Gerrard. Is this the way the show found to lightly punish Gerrard? It’s a comical thing to have him this disoriented over Brad and his new role, but it’s a punishment of some sort, I guess. Is he being punished to be redeemed in a certain way? I’m not sure about the answer to any of these, but Gerrard is right now being shown more lightly. This episode ends with Brad joining the 118 with the intent of studying Bobby and the daily work of firefighters — and he will cause more trouble in the future, that’s for sure.
“Hotshots” – 9-1-1. Pictured: Oliver Stark as Buck, Bailey Leung as Jee-Yun. Photo: Ray Mickshaw/ABC © 2024 Disney. All rights reserved.
Finally, we also have Buck (Oliver Stark) dealing with his recent breakup. His storyline is smaller here, but it has some nice moments such as the moment in which Maddie and Chimney reveal their new pregnancy, or his cute scene with Jee-Yun (Bailey Leung) — that was such a nice, beautiful moment. Also, I laughed so much in the scene with Eddie preventing Buck from making a phone call. Hen joins them in this playful moment, but this is all about Eddie trying to be a lighter, more spontaneous person — and he’s so awkward at this, but also so cute. It’s interesting that Buck and Eddie, despite being together in many scenes during this season, have yet to have a conversation about everything that has happened in their lives. Their only scene completely alone had them in silence, so I think there’s something to be disclosed between them in the future. Let’s wait and see what that is.
Overall, this episode left me with mixed feelings: it is filled with funny moments and interesting interactions between characters, but it is also all over the place when it comes to its messages and the cop-related storyline. Especially because it puts Athena away from the 118 (and her children), when her cop storylines work better when done with the other main characters involved. It's also written in this dubious way, trying to point out some of the worst parts of our system while saying that maybe there's a reason for their existence. I would say it’s the weakest so far this season, but I don’t think it’s a bad one — on a full-season rewatch, the audience may find some new things to care about here.
What do you think about Hotshots? Any expectations regarding the fall finale next week? Feel free to leave a comment with your impressions and theories, and thanks for reading!
