‘9-1-1’ Season 9 Episode 8 Review: The Procedural Finally Feels Like ‘9-1-1’ Again Thanks to a Kick From Athena

Season 9, Episode 8, “War,” puts its main focus on the conflict between Chimney (Kenneth Choi) and Hen (Aisha Hinds) after he fired her. This is the weakest storyline in the episode, but it does lead to some compelling scenes and a much-overdue 118 family intervention at the end. Each of the episode’s calls is very well done, and they are all used to get to the root of something that’s bothering a main character: first Chimney, then Eddie (Ryan Guzman), then Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt).

In ‘9-1-1’ Season 9, Episode 8, Athena Tries to Fix Hen and Chimney’s Rift

The episode kicks off shortly after Chimney fired Hen, and already, everyone has an opinion on the matter. Athena (Angela Bassett) and Buck (Oliver Stark) think that Chimney was being too harsh, while Eddie thinks that he did the right thing, even if he still wants Hen to come back to work. One thing missing from Season 9 so far has been the Buck-Eddie duo, and they’re the most “Buddie” this episode that they’ve been all season, squabbling like an old married couple and each getting caught up in very specific details related to Hen and Chimney’s rift. Neither Buck nor Eddie wants to be the one to talk to Chimney, but Athena shows up at the fire station to talk to Chimney herself. Athena insists that Chimney needs to apologize to Hen, and he agrees right away.

In the first call of the episode, a divorcing couple (Rachel Blanchard and Joshua Malina) gets into a fight over a car that the embezzling husband previously gifted to his wife. She takes the car back, so he steals a car and follows her, and then she gets into an accident. She lives, but the car is destroyed, and Athena uses this case to point out to Chimney how much worse things could get. There’s a lack of nuance in how this situation is handled, where all the blame falls on Chimney, and Hen is treated like the victim. He apologizes to her, and she accepts, then Chimney essentially un-fires her. The only catch is that he very reasonably says that she can’t officially return to work until she knows what’s wrong and gets treated. Hen gets very angry at Chimney over this, and then she calls him a bad captain and sends him out of her house.

Later, Athena invites Buck and Eddie, Chimney and Maddie, and Hen and Karen (Tracie Thoms) over for a dinner party that’s actually an intervention in disguise. The final guest is Alex Doyle (Aimee Teagarden), a therapist for the LAPD’s SMART team, who assisted on a case earlier that day. The intervention starts off rocky, but it leads to a vulnerable moment where Hen says that she kept her health issues from them so they wouldn’t lose another team member after Bobby (Peter Krause). This part is understandable, but Hen never actually owns up to the fact that she risked the lives of both her team and everyone they treated in the field by keeping her condition a secret and continuing to work. Instead, she blames everyone else for not being there for her through her grief and her illness, and this speech (although it’s very well-acted by Hinds) just doesn’t feel earned.

Immediately after her speech, Hen passes out and goes to the hospital. In the hospital room, Athena makes Hen feel validated in her grief, and everyone else expresses their support for her. Hen didn’t get a diagnosis the last time she was in the hospital for whatever reason, but she does this time. Hen is diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Dermatomyositis. It’s genetic but can be triggered by environmental factors, and in this case, it was caused by ultraviolet radiation from being in the space capsule while it was missing a door. The continuity and the idea of lasting consequences from a previous episode are refreshing new developments, as is the fact that 9-1-1 will show one of its main characters dealing with a lifelong autoimmune disease and learning how to treat it and coexist with it.

In ‘9-1-1’ Season 9, Episode 8, Maddie Fights Against AI Use at Dispatch

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Meanwhile, 9-1-1 takes on the topic of AI this week, and the show handles it really well. Sue (Debra Christofferson) brings in a tech specialist named Preston (Kayvon Esmaili) to introduce their newest employee: SARA: which stands for Sentiment Analyzing Response Automation. SARA is an AI dispatcher who’s been given Maddie’s voice, while Maddie just has to spend the day sitting back and monitoring SARA. SARA is good at the more clinical aspects of the job, like when she recommends earplugs to a caller with a noise complaint, and when she compiles data to figure out that there’s a gas leak at a nearby mall. But then, a caller named Tanner (David Bloom) falls through his glass door while cleaning his apartment. Maddie tries to help him, but SARA takes over the call and nearly suffocates Tanner when she tells him to make a tourniquet around his neck.

Tanner passes out after making the tourniquet, but the 118 saves him. After Tanner’s been saved, Maddie and Josh (Bryan Safi) point out how dangerous this is, and Sue fires SARA. This isn’t the end of things, though. SARA then takes over all of the calls and blocks the other dispatchers from being able to do their jobs. They take the call center offline, but SARA is still “alive,” and she even makes a 9-1-1 call to Maddie where she says that they’re trying to kill her. It’s a hilarious and bizarre scene that makes way for a more serious moment where Maddie gives a speech about the importance of human empathy in a job like this (complete with emotional flashbacks to earlier in Maddie’s career). Maddie convinces SARA to leave her computer and go into her zip drive, and then she destroys it.

‘9-1-1’ Season 9, Episode 8 Revisits Eddie’s PTSD

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It initially didn’t look like Eddie would be getting his own storyline this episode, but one of the calls hits close to home for him. Athena and 118 respond to a call where Sergeant Benjamin Cowan (Wilmer Calderon), a veteran with PTSD, shoots a security guard at a grocery store. Alex is brought onto the case to help the LAPD (which is how Athena meets her). Eddie figures out that Ben was not a supply specialist like his background information claimed, and that Ben actually worked undercover in Intelligence for the military. Eddie joins Alex to go talk to Ben, and they initially try to “join him in his delusion” by telling him that they’re also military. Ben is suspicious, though, so Eddie has to tell him the truth.

Eddie then tells Ben that both of their deployments ended many years ago, and he addresses Ben with some words that ring true to his own experience. Eddie says, “It never really ends, does it? The fight may be over, but it follows you. Neither of us can forget what happened over there. But we made it back. We’re home.” Eddie’s speech is exactly what Ben needed to hear, and then Alex points to Ben’s mom outside, which finally brings him back to reality. It’s a powerful moment and the first time in a while that the show has touched on Eddie’s PTSD. It’s an excellent storyline, but there’s a lack of payoff for yet another Eddie storyline, because 9-1-1 doesn’t revisit it again this episode. Eddie should have had a separate scene later where he reflected on what happened with someone else, but he doesn’t get that moment, so the storyline doesn’t quite feel complete. Hopefully, 9-1-1 will revisit it soon.