9 Shocking Moments From the ‘9-1-1’ Season 8 Finale

Note: This story contains spoilers from “9-1-1” Season 8, Episode 18.

The Season 8 finale of “9-1-1” found the closeknit team of the 118 on the verge of breaking up in the aftermath of the death of their captain Bobby Nash (Peter Krause).

The two-parter began with a building collapse that forced everyone to put aside their differences and work together. Fortunately, the life and death emergency helped repair the rift between Bobby’s widow Athena (Angela Bassett) and Chim (Kenneth Choi), while one-time inseparable BFFs Buck (Oliver Stark) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) also seemed to patch things up.

Here are the most shocking moments from Thursday night’s episode, plus a few much-needed joyful ones.

Buck and Eddie decided to leave the 118

When Eddie returned to Los Angeles for Bobby’s funeral, it wasn’t clear if he was staying or going back to El Paso, Texas. He didn’t tell best friend Buck, who is subletting his house, that he’d gotten an offer to join a station in El Paso, leading to a blow-up between the two.

At the beginning of “Seismic Shift,” Eddie had taken the El Paso job and was getting a send-off from his LA crew. Meanwhile, a visibly dejected Buck — still reeling from Bobby’s death — said he had put in for a transfer to a new station since the 118 was now “just a number.”

Athena and Chim were trapped with no way out after a building collapse

Athena was already on the scene to settle a laundry room dispute between Graham (Sam Roach), the former Cart Cop from Episode 8 earlier in the season and two of his neighbors. She was outside in her patrol car when an explosion rocked the building. She rushed inside to find Graham and his neighbor Donnie pinned under rubble in the laundry room. She sent Donnie’s uninjured girlfriend out to get help. She found Chimney, who opted to go with her, even though Hen (Aisha Hinds) offered to go his place since Athena still blamed Chim for Bobby’s death. Another jolt from the unstable rubble sealed off their exit, trapping them and the two injured men.

Eddie saved the day

Eddie and son Christopher (Gavin McHugh) were about to head to the airport when Chris alerted him to a news report about the building collapse. Earlier, as part of his farewell to the 118, he was given his helmet and turnouts to take with him to El Paso. Sure enough, he put them on and rushed to the scene where his help was very much needed. Buck, Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody) and an injured resident were stuck on a higher floor with no way out and the structure growing increasingly unstable by the second. Eddie overrode Captain Gerrard’s too-slow ladder rescue plan and busted out a hook launcher, setting up a zip line that let all three evacuate the crumbling building.

Graham pulls a Bobby

Graham, who still had the use of his arms, had been helping save Donnie’s life by keeping pressure on Donnie’s rapidly bleeding wound and later by administering a Lifepak when Chim wasn’t able to reach the patient himself.

But when they were able to clear away the debris trapping Graham, they saw there was a piece of rebar that had punctured his stomach. He explained he didn’t tell them how seriously he was wounded because he figured he was already a goner so he should focus on saving Donnie. Chim and Athena were staggered to realize this was the exact same scenario that played out when Bobby deciding to sacrifice himself to save Chim.

Chim saved Graham (and kind of saved himself too)

Haunted by how similar the laundry room cave-in and Graham’s sacrifice was to how Bobby died, Chim staunchly refused to let Graham die on his watch. “Not today,” he vowed. With the help of the rest of his team, they were able to get their patient to the hospital alive and well.

Athena decided to sell the house she and Bobby were building

In a previous episode, Athena’s kids assumed she was going to sell the house she and Bobby were building to replace the one that burned down. She assured them she was still set on living there, even without Bobby. But when the house was finished, Athena walked away from it, keeping only a group photo with Bobby and Chim that Karen (Tracie Thomas) had given her earlier. Athena watched a younger couple walk into the open house with a bittersweet smile before she drove away.

Chim refused to let the 118 fall apart

Hen had already turned down the chance to become the station’s new captain, but Chim made a hell of a great case why he should get the job with a moving speech that no one should leave the 118.

“Nobody is transferring out and nobody is staying in Texas. This is our firehouse. This is the 118 and it’s not just a number, it’s us,” he said after grabbing Eddie’s phone to stop him from booking a flight to El Paso.

He told Buck, “You’re right, things are never gonna be the same again, because the Cap is gone. But leaving won’t change that. It won’t make you feel any less sad. It just means that you’ll be sad all alone.”

Chim went on to say the team is Bobby’s legacy. “So we can miss him, and we can mourn him, and we can even curse his name, but we are not going to disrespect him by throwing away what he built right here. So you hang up your turnouts, you hit the showers, you go home and you get some rest, because we are all going to see each other on our next shift, right here, together, understood.”

An impressed Hen responded, “Copy that Cap. I mean, Chim.”

Some characters got a happy ending, but not Buck

Chim and Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) had their baby and named him Robert Nash Han to honor the fallen captain. Athena cradled the newborn in her arms and told him, “Hi, Bobby.” Meanwhile, Hen and Karen were finally able to officially adopt Mara (Askyler Bell).

Eddie and Chris finished unpacking their belongings from Texas, but Buck was already looking for a new place to live. When a realtor asked why he was moving from his previous residence, he replied, “It wasn’t really mine. I was just subletting.”

“9-1-1” will return for Season 9 this fall on ABC. Episodes are now streaming on Hulu.

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