Mark Consuelos Reveals His Mom Wasn’t Happy He Was Swallowed by a Whale on 9-1-1: ‘Why Would They Do That?’ (Exclusive)

Mark Consuelos’ mom would like to have a word with ABC.

In the season 9 premiere of 9-1-1, Consuelos, 54, made a splash when his character, billionaire Tripp Hauser, was swallowed by a whale while kayaking in the episode’s opening moments. The Station 118 team saved Tripp, but that didn’t make Consuelos’ mother, Camilla Consuelos, feel much better.

Ahead of the second episode of the two-part season premiere airing Thursday, Oct. 16, on ABC, the Live! with Kelly and Mark co-host spoke exclusively with PEOPLE about his family’s reaction to his wild storyline. Consuelos reveals that he and wife Kelly Ripa watched the episode with his parents during a visit to North Carolina, and his mom didn’t love seeing her son get swallowed by a whale.

“We went to go visit my folks in North Carolina and my mom watched it, and she’s like, ‘Marco,’ ” he says with an Italian accent. “She’s Italian. ‘Marco, I suffered so much for you. You were stuck in that whale. I did not like that. I did not like… Why would they do that to you?’ “

The actor laughs, “I said, ‘Mom, it’s just TV.’ “

While Consuelos didn’t find his time stuck in a (fictional) whale quite so distressing, he did pause for a moment when he first read the script. “It was like, what? I’m like, ‘Oh no, this sounds…’ ” he says of reading the whale scene.

However, the more he read, the more he appreciated the story the writers were telling. “I knew a little bit about the show, that they take really huge swings and they do a lot of beautifully outlandish things and they’re able to execute it,” he says. “So I had that kind of faith in that they would be able to do it great.”

He was also familiar with the real-life kayaker who was swallowed by a whale in February, before getting spat out. “So I said, let me continue to read. And the more and more I read the script, I fell in love with this character, Tripp Houser,” he adds.

Consuelos also says that playing “a megalomaniac kind of rich guy that’s willing to do anything” was a blast. The Riverdale alum especially loves the second part of the premiere in which he teases “there’s so many great things for me to do” as Tripp prepares to send a crew of civilians — including Angela Bassett’s Athena Grant and Aisha Hinds’ Henrietta “Hen” Wilson — into space.

“Anything that could go wrong goes wrong in a monumental way,” he tells PEOPLE of the mission, adding, “Tripp has a decision to make before the launch that he should absolutely pause and cancel the launch. But he, in his Tripp Houser fashion, he rolls the dice and says punch it.”