‘9-1-1’ Recap: Athena’s Nightmare Flight Goes From Really Bad to Even Worse

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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 2 “When the Boeing Gets Tough…”]

As showrunner Tim Minear told us, “Bobby’s always [Athena’s] lifeline. She’s always his lifeline.” That is crystal clear in the latest 9-1-1 episode, following the bee-nado causing a smaller plane to collide with the one Athena’s (Angela Bassett) on—while Bobby (Peter Krause) is stuck on the TV show set as tech advisor (get him back to the 118 ASAP!) with his phone off!

The episode follows the same pattern 9-1-1 has in the past: It goes back to before the incident, introducing the soon-to-be victims. The passengers include, alongside Athena and her fiancé’s killer Dennis Jenkins (Glenn Plummer), an elderly couple, a woman with her dog, and a high school sports team. Leading up to Athena going to speak to the captain (as seen at the end of the premiere), Dennis tells her he’s only going to take the deal for early release with her blessing.

After the collision, Athena tries to call in a mayday over the radio, then calls 9-1-1, and Josh (Bryan Safi) answers. He connects her to air traffic control (Sarah Chaney, Tiffany C. Adams, and Jake Green, below, returning from Season 5’s “Panic”); fortunately, the pilot, before losing consciousness, hit the autopilot button. (The captain was sucked out through a hole in the cockpit. There’s another tear in the back.) “I know that you’re all scared. I won’t tell you not to be because I am, too, but the important thing now is that we help each other and not panic,” Athena tells the passengers, then asks who has cell service.

Disney/Anne Marie Fox

Meanwhile, on the ground, Gerrard’s (Brian Thompson) alive, with a possible concussion, and taken to the hospital. Buck (Oliver Stark) worries he’s going to kill him or fire him, then kill him, but Eddie (Ryan Guzman) points out he saved his life. “Is that what I did? Honestly, I don’t really know because I just wanted to hit the guy,” Buck admits. But with Gerrard out of the firehouse, that means Hen’s (Aisha Hinds) acting captain and her first order? Dance party! But Buck doesn’t join in.

Then Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) calls Chimney (Kenneth Choi) during lunch and tells him she’s taking the 118 out of rotation for the rest of their shift and has him put her on speaker. She explains that she needs them to help with multiple casualties from a mid-air collision—and the plane is still in the air. She’ll be patching them through individually to help triage. Why them? “Because you’re their best hope,” she explains, “and because Athena’s on that plane.”

Athena tries to reach Bobby but only gets his voicemail. “Bobby… I love you, baby,” she says in a voicemail. But she doesn’t have time to focus on that because that’s when air traffic control alerts her that she’s going to land the plane. “That is not a great plan,” she protests. A flight instructor, Jimmy (Anthony Azizi), will coach her through it. That’s helpful. What’s not? The only thing they can tell her to do about the hole in the back of the plane is to move people away from it (which has been done).

Buck tries to reach Bobby while Eddie, Hen, and Chimney talk to passengers on the plane. One of the athletes’ legs is broken, and it’s thanks to Dennis’ knowledge of how to make a shiv in prison that he and other passengers can relieve the pressure from compartment syndrome. Hen coaches the woman with the dog through helping the man in the seat next to her with what seems to be a panic attack but then turns out to be high-altitude pulmonary edema, and we have to say how impressed we are with how calm this woman is as well as how much we enjoyed the elderly couple who had everything she needed (“Perks of being geriatric, dear”) to treat the man (Viagra and a nebulizer). Really, everyone who’s helping is surprisingly not panicking, given the situation.

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With help from Jimmy as well as a young boy who really knows planes, Athena’s able to turn the plane around, then when it starts descending due to the hole in the back getting bigger, level it out.

When half the department’s companies are called to the airport to prepare for an emergency touchdown, Buck tells the others he’ll meet them there—he’s going to get Bobby. Bobby’s just heard Athena’s voicemail and seen the news about the plane when he arrives on set. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Bobby says upon seeing Buck. “Athena’s on that flight, isn’t she?” Buck corrects him: “She’s flying it.” “What else would she be doing?” Bobby asks. With traffic terrible, Bobby makes the call for them to take the truck on set—and the actor playing the captain on the TV show jumps in, too. Bobby doesn’t waste time arguing with him.

Then, Athena gets some good news: The co-pilot is awake and can take over … or so she thinks for about a minute because he then has a heart attack!

What did you think of this episode? What are you hoping to see in the third part of this bee-nado event? Let us know in the comments section below.

9-1-1, Thursdays, 8/7c, ABC