SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers for the Oct. 30 episode of “9-1-1.”
Houston, we have no more problems.
On Thursday’s episode of “9-1-1,” Athena (Angela Bassett) and Hen (Aisha Hinds) finally made it back to Earth after a four-episode arc that had them journeying to and from space. What was meant to be a quick trip up and back as a reward for saving a billionaire’s life turned into Hen and Athena’s personal Apollo 13.
With help from Hen’s physicist wife Karen (Tracie Thoms) and Athena’s willingness to once again put her life on the line for the people closest to her, “9-1-1” avoided losing two major characters. “9-1-1” hasn’t been shy about killing off major characters, such as Peter Krause’s Captain Bobby Nash last season.
“Listen, no one’s safe at any moment; we know that” Hinds told Variety. “When you have an adventure as intense as going into space and knowing the fabric, the nature and the DNA of ‘9-1-1’ — you can send us to the safest place on Earth and there is going to be a magnanimous mishap of sorts. So it was like, ‘Where does this go?’”
According to Hinds, she and Bassett were not informed by “9-1-1” showrunner Tim Minear about their fates heading into the multi-episode arc, and instead the writers “slowly rolled it out for us.”
“We didn’t know our next move until we were deep into this move — which was also what added to the adventure of it all,” Hinds said.
A pivotal moment in the episode is when Athena insists she be the one to go out into space and attempt to fix the ship so that everyone can get home. Athena tells her best friend Hen that Hen needs to live for Karen and their young kids, but that Athena is willing to risk it all after her husband Bobby’s death, and now that her children are older. This present-day moment comes as viewers are seeing part of Athena’s past where she lost a beloved partner in the field, and grappled with how to move on and live without them.
“It was that moment where I felt the fabric of their friendship,” Hinds said. “When I first signed on to do the show, one of the things they talked to me about was Hen’s character will be best friends with Angela’s character. And that was a selling point for me. And I felt the fabric of that friendship in that moment; grappling with watching her out there and knowing the danger. So all throughout I was like, ‘Are we gonna die? Do we die? And so it made getting out of there and Karen being the one to lead us out of there, that much more gratifying and satisfying. You got us out here in space. Athena’s literally walking in space to try to help save our lives. But she’s doing it willingly in a way that’s feeling like she has nothing more to live for, but helping us to all realize that there is so much more to life. And I’m so glad that she gave it all to be able to get out of there.”
Courtesy of Disney/Christopher Willard
But what does all this mean for Hen and Athena now that they need to return to normal life after facing an experience very few people in existence have ever been through?
“It was certainly an incredibly traumatic experience, so much so that you get on the ground and all Athena can do is laugh hysterically and it becomes contagious,” Hinds said. “That’s the question is, do you laugh to keep from feeling all of the other emotions and thinking the real thoughts that come along with the fact that you just faced death in a real way, and the uncertainty of that? But then the flip side of looking at that is, now we’re even more fortified. What on Earth could really stop us at this point? What life experiences on the ground could really throw us? That gives us a fortified renewal for life, and an appreciation for our family and the opportunities to get to be reunited with them and do the work that we do.”
Hinds notes that Hen and Athena “may spend the rest of the season sort of grappling with those two things,” and then added: “Will the trauma of it overwhelm us, or are we so triumphant that we got to land on the ground and see our family again, and so therefore it’s us against the world at this point?”
