Maddie’s 9-1-1 Nightmare Isn’t Over Yet — EP Teases the ‘Psychic Scars’ She Still Needs to Overcome
As the great philosopher Papa Roach once said, “our scars remind us that the past is real.” And for 9-1-1‘s Maddie Han, things are about to get very real.
Thursday’s episode (ABC, 8/7c) finds Jennifer Love Hewitt‘s character struggling to return to work as a dispatcher for the first time since being kidnapped by Amber, a near-fatal ordeal neither she nor the audience will ever forget — thanks in part to the big ol’ scar on Maddie’s throat from when Amber slashed it.
“We’re playing like five weeks or something has transpired [since the attack],” showrunner Tim Minear tells TVLine. “That’s stated explicitly in the next episode. Her hair is longer, it’s a little bit different.” But the scar? “That can’t go away.”
Indeed, getting that scar reapplied is now going to be part of Hewitt’s daily hair-and-makeup routine on set, just as it has been for Maddie’s better half.
“I put a piece of rebar through Chimney’s head [back in Season 1], and he’s got a little scar,” Minear says. “It was more prominent initially, but yeah, we’ve been applying that [on Kenneth Choi] for eight years.”
Lessening the appearance of Maddie’s scar may become a storyline in the future, but for now, “she’s not talking so much about the physical scar yet,” Minear explains. “It’s more about the emotional scars, the psychic scars she’s been left with.”
As revealed in the promo for Thursday’s episode, appropriately titled “Disconnected,” Maddie appears to suffer a panic attack while assisting a caller trapped in a smoky room, clutching her throat as she’s seemingly unable to speak.
Of course, Maddie isn’t the only one struggling this week. We also spend a considerable amount of time with Eddie in El Paso, where adjusting to his new life becomes complicated when “Christopher discovers him in an unfamiliar situation,” per the official logline.
