Ask Matt: What’s Your Emergency? The Tragedy on ‘9-1-1’
Welcome to the Q&A with TV critic — also known to some TV fans as their “TV therapist” — Matt Roush, who’ll try to address whatever you love, loathe, are confused or frustrated or thrilled by in today’s vast TV landscape. (We know background music is too loud, it’s the most frequent complaint, but there’s always closed-captioning. Check out this story for more tips.)
One caution: This is a spoiler-free zone, so we won’t be addressing upcoming storylines here unless it’s already common knowledge. Please send your questions and comments to [email protected]. Look for Ask Matt columns on most Tuesdays.
9-1-1‘s Big Loss
Question: What do you think about what just happened on 9-1-1? I’m devastated about it, and I believe that killing off Bobby Nash and removing Peter Krause from the show will prove to be a catastrophic mistake. I understand that 9-1-1 is a show about first responders who risk their lives daily to serve and protect, and there’s a chance that those people will not make it home at the end of the day, and that kind of loss of life is a realistic outcome. But producers Ryan Murphy and Tim Minear haven’t been making that kind of show here. For the first seven seasons, starting with Chimney and the rebar through his skull in Season 1 and ending in Season 7 with Bobby surviving a cardiac arrest and coma after his and Athena’s house burned down, everyone has survived everything that should have killed them. That makes it impossible for me to accept Bobby dying, and it makes me not want to watch Season 9 to see the aftermath.
Ripping the heart out of the show (and that’s what Bobby is) to mix things up is cruel to an audience who have been conditioned by the show to believe that the characters will make it home unscathed at the end of the day. If they wanted to do a more realistic portrayal of the risks first responders encounter, well, 9-1-1: Nashville is coming up, and they can do it there. I’m hoping, probably futilely, that ABC, Ryan Murphy, Tim Minear, and anyone else responsible for this short-sighted decision will see the error of their ways and fix this, Bobby Ewing in Dallas style. A 9-1-1 without Bobby Nash and Peter Krause is not something I want to watch. — Lizzie (still sobbing)
Matt Roush: Would you believe – and I’m guessing you would (especially if you’re a 9-1-1 fan) — that this was one of the more restrained responses I found in my mailbag after last Thursday’s shocking and tragic twist? The mortality of main characters has become quite the trend of late, and while it’s still early days, I doubt I’ll get quite as vehement a blowback over the even more brutal death that just occurred on HBO‘s The Last of Us. As Lizzie rightly noted, 9-1-1 hasn’t conditioned its fan base for something this sudden, final, and bleak — and might I add, contrived. Whereas in a post-apocalyptic show like The Last of Us, anything and everything goes, and many of the core audience, experienced with the game on which the show was based, no doubt knew that was coming. Not so on 9-1-1.
Here’s a sampling of some of the other reactions that poured in.
From Chris: “To say I am angry is understating it. They kill off Peter Krause in such a cold and inhumane way? Let’s not be fooled by the slow motion of the cast crying as a way to say this was emotional. It was harsh and cruel to all the fans who have been committed for eight seasons, for the poor actor who didn’t want to leave, or his cast members who equally didn’t want him to go. Perhaps this can be a textbook case of a creator who is so out of touch with his audience and more focused on his egotistical motives to have the “TV story of the week.”
From Linda: “We watch a show like this knowing, despite all the precariousness, our cast will always make it out. The actual episode, too, was weak. I mean, his exit made no sense. He spent the whole episode covered up. Eddie wasn’t even around. A lot of clunky storytelling. It left me angry and boiling that they would even consider doing this. In all honesty, I didn’t think the series had much left in the gas — another year or so — but Tim Minear has accelerated things. 9-1-1 will never be the same again.”
Matt Roush: Which is possibly the point. As Tim Minear explained (I’m sure to no one’s satisfaction) in this literal post-mortem interview, he felt it was time for someone to make the ultimate sacrifice, and who better to have the largest impact than the guy at the top of the 118 food chain? As I’ve explained many times in this space after a major character is killed off of a show, these decisions are very much a calculated risk, not easily made, and could obviously backfire by fans feeling blindsided or even betrayed, though I (like Peter Krause himself) will defend to the end a showrunner’s right to tell the story they choose to tell, however reckless it appears. And there’s no denying, regardless of the heated emotions of the moment, that Bobby went out on a hero move.
My biggest problem, creatively, was the way his sacrifice was presented as an 11th-hour bait and switch. If he was exposed to the virus all along, why wasn’t he suffering like Chimney? (Because he was more covered up?) To drop this bombshell in the final minutes of the episode, after what looked like yet another miraculous triumph, smacked of cheap melodrama, which isn’t unheard of on this show, obviously, but understandably left a bitter aftertaste with fans. I give the show credit for not telegraphing such a major moment (in promos or elsewhere), but at what cost? That remains to be seen.
What’s Next?
Question: With Peter Krause gone from 9-1-1, any word on who the new chief will be? Any chance they would bring back Rob Lowe or someone else from 9-1-1: Lone Star to be the new chief? — Scott S.
Matt Roush: According to Minear, we won’t know who’s taking over permanently for Bobby until next season, so as to give the show a proper mourning period, it appears. But given that this unexpected twist feels so much like a major reset, I’d be surprised if they’d reach back to the now-shuttered spinoff to pluck a familiar franchise face to take over (unless it’s from the history of the 9-1-1 show itself). Let the speculation begin.
On the Plus Side
Comment: The only silver lining about the whole situation is the possibility of seeing what’s next with Peter Krause. Even though he was great on 9-1-1, I feel that it is a good thing he can go to a potentially more dramatically demanding role (think Six Feet Under or Parenthood) and finally get the elusive Emmy he most certainly deserves. Your thoughts? — Hector
Matt Roush: It’s true the Emmy voters were never going to notice him on this show — or probably any other broadcast network drama this side of This Is Us. The upside for any actor leaving a long-running gig, whatever the circumstances, is the hope that there’s another role out there that will be as rewarding, and maybe even more challenging. Krause has certainly shown his range and appeal in very different sorts of shows, from Sports Night onward. Hard to imagine him not being in demand.
Tracking a Darker Path
Comment: My family enjoyed the first season of Tracker. We’ve stopped watching the second season. It’s become quite disturbing (multiple stories about abductions, psychopaths, mind control freaks, cults) and routinely includes violent scenes: headless body in the shower, guy thrown in a woodchipper, shootings, torture, hangings, knife attacks. Even the side stories are taking a decidedly dark tone (with Reenie now working with a suspicious character). I realize the premise lends itself to some of this, but it’s become hard to watch. I saw an interview where Justin Hartley described the show as great for families. Um, no. Not mine, at least. It’s become the stuff of nightmares. — Lisa
Matt Roush: I’ve seen several comments about the show’s darker turn, and what a turnoff it’s becoming for those who had come to expect a more escapist hour (which I’ll admit felt to me like it was sometimes playing it too safe, not compelling me to keep watching much past the first season). Maybe this is the show they’d envisioned from the start, more in keeping perhaps with the violent world of the author (Jeffery Deaver) whose books inspired the series, or maybe it’s a response to the success in streaming of Prime Video‘s similarly themed and much more violent Reacher (whose hulk-like drifter’s adventures tell a season-long story). But to shift tone so drastically without warning is puzzling, to be sure.
And Finally …
Comment: I finally watched the Yellowstone prequels 1883, and then 1923. I liked them both very much, though 1923 in particular was probably longer than it should have been. What I most want to express, though, is that while I’ve always enjoyed and admired Helen Mirren, and she has done some amazing performances, I don’t think I’ve ever liked her so much in a role as her role in 1923. What a handsome, dignified woman, yet belonging perfectly to that place and era. And I could listen to her Irish accent all day. — D.P.
Matt Roush: You’ll never see me pass up an opportunity to heap praise on Helen Mirren. To see someone shift from playing a salt-of-the-earth pioneer (in 1923) to riotously inhabiting a ruthless Lady Macbeth in the new Paramount+ drama MobLand is to marvel. But if you want me to call out a single performance, I’ll always go back to her defining role as Detective Chief Inspector, later Superintendent, Jane Tennison in the great British crime drama Prime Suspect.
That’s all for now. We can’t do this without your participation, so please keep sending questions and comments about TV to [email protected]. (Please include a first name with your question.)
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