Our long national nightmare is over: The disaster-plagued first responders of 9-1-1 are finally back. Of course, the return of our favorite procedural means that there are new nightmares in store for the residents of Los Angeles, who will once again be forced to reckon with any number of apocalyptic scenarios rained down on them by sadistic showrunner Tim Minear and his creatively evil writing staff. It’s an exciting time to be a 9-1-1 fan, and not just because the show is back.
While some of us have been in the trenches since season one — Connie Britton, gone but not forgotten — interest in the series reached new heights last season when Buck’s newly discovered bisexuality took over everyone’s timelines. (Shout-out to the TikTok algorithm and the die-hard Buddie shippers, who have been fighting the good fight for years.) In the run-up to season eight, the buzz for 9-1-1 grew even louder with the promise of another major event on the horizon: the bee-nado.
Yes, in the series’ ethic of constant escalation , the three-part season premiere is centered on killer bees, and we’re off to the races in the cold open, which sees a private plane flying into a cloud of bees and veering wildly off course. More on that later — we’ve got problems on the ground to deal with first. After Bobby’s aborted retirement at the end of last season, the 118 is now being led by Captain Gerrard, whom we mostly know from his abusive treatment of Chimney and Hen in previous flashbacks.
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