‘9-1-1’ Recap, Season 8 Episode 16: The Last Alarm

It would have been easy enough for 9-1-1 to do the normal TV thing and save Bobby’s surprise death for the season finale. Give people the summer to heal, return next season with a time jump so that all of the characters have had several months to process the loss, and put up a framed photo of Captain Nash so it’s clear he hasn’t been forgotten entirely. Instead, the show killed off one of its most central characters with three episodes to spare. “The Last Alarm” takes place two weeks after Bobby’s sacrifice, with the wound still fresh. For a show that often leans into silliness, it’s an impressively sober depiction of the stages of grief — here, mostly denial and anger — and it culminates in a fitting send-off for the character.

As the episode begins, Athena seems to be holding it together, though there are certainly cracks in her armor. For one thing, she can’t settle on a place to bury her late husband, and as May notes, they need to find something so they can finally have the funeral. Athena blames the delay on the fact that Bobby’s body has yet to be released, but when she gets a call finding out that Chimney has helped expedite that process, she’s furious. Athena shows up at the 118 to dress Chim down for interfering, suggesting that he wants to speed up the burial because “until he’s in the ground, nobody gets to move on. They have to live yet another day thinking about Bobby and how he died.” Chimney himself has been suffering — Maddie tells Buck that he’s taken up running as a way to avoid everyone — but he knows better than to argue with a widow. Athena tells everyone the funeral has been scheduled for next Tuesday and tries storming off, but before she can leave, she bumps into a man named Gary, who’s looking for Bobby.

Gary is, sadly, a little late, so Athena graciously takes him to a diner. He offers her his condolences and then explains the situation. His sister, Leah, is in jail, having been charged with stalking and attempted kidnapping after trying to run off with a little boy. As we saw in the flashback that opens the episode, Leah’s son Micah died in a fire when he was just a baby; the 118 responded, but Bobby couldn’t make it to the crib in time. Now, Leah has become convinced that a boy named Cameron she met on a catering gig — who shares Micah’s exact birthdate — is her son. While Gary isn’t sure what Bobby could have done to talk sense into Leah, he’s desperate for someone who saw the fire firsthand to confirm that Micah died as an infant. Athena wasn’t there, but she’s still eager to help. It’s what Bobby would have wanted.

Back at the 118, Gerrard shows up and immediately lets everyone know he’s not the new captain. (The sigh of relief I let out.) He also appears to have gotten a personality transplant, because he’s suddenly a thoughtful and compassionate person who is just there to help with the transition until a new captain is appointed by Chief Simpson. But when Gerrard starts sharing a few words about his personal connection to Bobby, Chimney walks out in anger. That rage carries over into the 118’s next call, the aftermath of a car accident with a man who T-boned another driver loudly insisting it was her fault. Chim sets him straight in a slightly more aggressive manner than the situation requires, which prompts Gerrard to pull him aside. “I know you’re hurting,” he calmly tells Chimney. “I am, too.” When Chim says Gerrard isn’t half the man Bobby was — I mean, duh — Gerrard is a little less understanding, reminding Chimney that he is currently captain. “Only because I killed our last one, so I’d be very careful if I were you,” Chim answers. He’s not doing well, and really who can blame him?

Athena isn’t doing great either, but she has a good distraction. She visits Leah in jail, where she hears the story in Leah’s own words — and honestly, it’s pretty compelling! When Leah saw Cameron at his birthday party, she thought she was crazy for noting his resemblance to Micah, but then she spotted the heart-shaped birthmark on Cameron’s wrist, an exact match to Micah’s. Even after that, she needed more proof, so she went inside the house where she saw photos of Cameron’s mother, a woman that Leah did prenatal yoga with, but who left abruptly. The rumor at the time was that this woman, Heather, had lost her pregnancy. Leah is convinced that Heather kidnapped Micah from his crib and started the fire to cover it up, and Athena is right there with her. Because this is 9-1-1, a show grounded in absurdity, nothing about this seems that far-fetched. But it also plays into a fantasy that anyone who has lost someone too soon is familiar with — there’s been some mistake; despite all evidence to the contrary, your loved one didn’t actually die.

This is its own form of denial, and no matter how the stages of grief are supposed to progress, it can pop up years after a loss. It’s not surprising that Athena latches on to Leah’s story because it serves as a sort of confirmation that people really do come back from the dead sometimes. She goes full Carrie Mathison Homeland conspiracy wall, starting her own investigation into Heather and Cameron. She’s also ignoring texts and calls from her kids and from the LAFD — nothing is more important to her in this moment than reuniting Leah with Micah. What she can’t ignore, however, is Bobby, making a ghostly appearance to ask if she’s starting a podcast. He seems less than convinced by Athena’s kidnapping theory. “If you are not going to be helpful, go haunt someone else, I’m busy,” she snaps at him. The way Athena sees it, Bobby locked himself in a lab to die and forfeited the right to tell her how to live. And we’re back to anger.

When Athena goes so far as to exhume Micah’s grave (with Leah’s blessing, of course), she’s shocked to learn that there’s no body to do DNA testing on. But there’s another DNA test she can run to put this matter to bed. Visiting Leah again in jail, Athena reveals that she got DNA samples from Heather and Cameron — they’re a match. Cameron is Heather’s biological son, and he’s not related to Leah, which means Micah is really gone. Athena also has to share the deeply upsetting news that there was never a body to bury because Micah was fully consumed by the flames, something she feels Leah’s family should have been honest about at the time. It is a heartbreaking scene in an episode filled with heartbreaking scenes, as Leah admits to herself that she imagined something that was never true. “I think that you were overcome by grief,” Athena gently tells her. “For a moment, you let yourself believe that miracles were possible.” The DA is willing to consider a diversion program for Leah, but there’s no happy ending here, with the grieving mother feeling like she’s losing her son all over again.

Athena was letting herself believe in miracles, too, but she can’t escape the reality of her situation — and she’s finally found the right place to bury Bobby. We see everyone getting ready for the funeral. Ravi has picked up Buck’s dry cleaning so that Buck can pick up Eddie from the airport. (Did I cry a little when Eddie appeared? Yes, but in my defense, I was already crying.) Before they can head to the church, though, Buck gets a call from Maddie. She needs his help with Chimney, who is drinking straight from a bottle of vodka on the roof. No one can deny the truth of what happened: Bobby chose to save Chimney’s life at the cost of his own. Nevertheless, Buck tells Chim that no one blames him for what happened. “I don’t blame me either, I blame him,” says Chim, still firmly in the anger stage. Bobby always taught them that when presented with two bad options, you find a third way out — and then he took it upon himself to choose a bad option, without even telling his team what he was doing. When Buck asks if there really was a third way at the lab, Chimney admits he’s spent the last two weeks thinking it through without being able to find one. But he’s struggling with the responsibility he suddenly feels. “Buck, he gave his life so I could live,” Chim says. “I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do with that.” Here, Buck has the exact right response: “I think you’re just supposed to live.”

The funeral that ends the episode is as devastating as you’d expect. Everyone is there, including Bobby’s formerly estranged mother, and there’s not a dry eye in the house. (Or in the audience, presumably.) Chief Simpson leads the funeral, explaining the tradition that when a firefighter dies in duty, 10 bells ring to commemorate the loss. The funeral procession is scored with “A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall,” and it’s a powerful sequence that reinforces how smart it was for 9-1-1 to really lean into grief instead of brushing it aside. These characters deserve a chance to mourn, and so do we. The episode ends with Athena and her kids at Bobby’s graveside — the perfect spot turned out to be next to the wife and kids he lost in a fire all those years ago. “You’re home now, baby,” Athena tells him. What more is there to say?

• There are so many beautiful, tear-jerking moments in this episode that I couldn’t include them all, but I did want to mention the flashback to Bobby visiting Leah in the hospital after Micah’s death. When Bobby shares that he’s lost two children, she asks how he keeps going. “I live in the belief that one day I will see them again,” he says. (Imagine not crying at this!)

• Athena and Hen have a powerful scene of their own, where it becomes clear how much Athena is struggling. She’s talking about Gary withholding the truth from Leah about Micah’s body, but she’s really talking about the way Bobby died. “You don’t leave them to deal with the mess alone,” she tells Hen as she breaks down.

• I also appreciated the quieter but still meaningful moments, like Maddie hugging Buck and saying, “I love you, and given recent events I feel like that’s something I should start saying more.”

• One bright spot amid all the sadness: Ravi’s not a probie anymore! Hopefully, that means Anirudh Pisharody will get an upgrade to series-regular status next season.

• I’m very curious to see what 9-1-1 looks like in season nine without Bobby as an anchor. Frankly, I’m curious to see how the show wraps up this season, given how final this episode feels, but I have more faith in the writers than ever.