**Spoilers Ahead**
9-1-1’s second episode of the season continues with the blackout caused by a hacking group, causing chaos through the city of Los Angeles. The 118 is in the middle of their longest shift ever, and we get to see set-ups from the season premiere continue.
Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) continues to struggle with postpartum depression, which ultimately led to a heart-stopping scene that ended up having baby Jee-Yun have to go to the emergency room. It was a relief to see that the baby was okay, and it’s still commendable that the show continues to portray this very real struggle that is so often misunderstood and stigmatized in the real world.
It wouldn’t be a 3-part premiere without poor Bobby (Peter Krause) continuing the
9-1-1 tradition of being caught in a particularly perilous scenario, but that shot of him with a helicopter falling to the ground behind him is particularly epic. 9-1-1 is also at its best when it leans into the silliness of the calls the 118 responds to, and that was certainly true this week with Bobby and Hen (Aisha Hinds) coming face-to-face with an alpaca afflicted with berserk syndrome (it’s a thing, I looked it up).
Poor Hen hasn’t really gotten her own character arc this season (although the fact that she looked into buying an alpaca at one time in her life is amazing), and hopefully that changes soon. She is the heart and soul of the 118, and it’s disappointing to not make use of such an incredible character. It also seemed incredibly out of character for her to seemingly dismiss Chimney’s (Kenneth Choi) concerns about Maddie’s worsening mental health. The goal here seemed to be to have Hen be reassuring, but it came across as incredibly cavalier which is completely unlike the character.
Eddie (Ryan Guzman) continues to experience panic attacks and poor Buck (Oliver Stark) is just trying to be a supportive friend. Any time Buck gets to show his sensitive side is a win for his character, and it’s still so amazing to consider how far he has come in his journey from a womanizer to a man who respects women and is comfortable with his emotions.
This episode also had Athena at her best continuing to track down escaped serial rapist Jeffery Hudson (Noah Bean), and it’s a relief to see Detective Ransone (Sasha Roiz) live to fight another day. It was also so heartbreaking to see Michael’s
(Rockmond Dunbar) neighbourly actions taken advantage of and ultimately used for tragedy.
That ending seeing Harry (Marcanthonee Reis) kidnapped by Hudson had us freaking out and we don’t know if we can wait until the next episode to see what happens next.
9-1-1 airs Mondays 8/7c on Fox.