9-1-1 boss previews season 8, with Bobby retired, Buck struggling, Eddie mourning, and Athena facing her past

After an epic seventh season that began with a Poseidon adventure at sea and ended with Bobby (Peter Krause) and Athena’s (Angela Bassett) home burned down and the fire captain quietly resigning from the 118, 9-1-1 co-creator and showrunner Tim Minear had one thing in mind when his team returned to start writing season 8: “To not just take back everything that happened at the end of last season.”

That meant not backpedaling on Gerrard (Brian Thompson) stepping in as the new caption of the 118. Not to mention picking up where things left off with newlyweds Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Chimney (Kenneth Choi) taking over fostering Mara (Askyler Bell) from Karen (Tracie Thoms) and Hen (Aisha Hinds), while the latter deal with a local councilwoman out for revenge. Then there’s Buck (Oliver Stark) dating Tommy (Lou Ferrigno Jr.), and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) blowing up his home life after kissing a doppelgänger of his son’s deceased mom.

On top of all that, season 8 will kick off with a swarm of bees. “We just wanted to generate some buzz,” Minear jokes to Entertainment Weekly before explaining that the upcoming disaster stemmed from a conversation with co-creator Ryan Murphy. “He really just loved what we did last year with the Poseidon Adventure [storyline], and he was like, ‘What are some other great ’70s disaster movies?’ And I just threw out The Swarm, and he’s like, ‘Yes, do that!'”

Unlike previous seasons, where 9-1-1 teases the big season-starting disaster at the start and then rewinds the timeline to catch up with the 118 before diving into the action, “we’re hitting the ground running,” Minear says of kicking things off with the bees. But the insects will “lead to a slightly different disaster at the end of the first hour that takes us through the next two episodes,” he continues, teasing that the second crisis is inspired by a different ’70s disaster movie and will also showcase someone from Athena’s history. “I will say that it’s somebody you’ve met, and it’s going to help her resolve, in a deeper way, a very important event in her past,” he reveals.

But what’s going on with the 118 family? Here’s what Minear says viewers can expect when the ABC drama returns Sept. 26 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

Is Bobby really leaving the 118?

“I think we landed in a really good place for an interesting story with Dad out of the house, I guess you could say,” Minear says of exploring Bobby’s life outside the firehouse, which includes working as a technical advisor on an action TV show called Hotshots. “It’s a ridiculous firefighter TV show,” Minear explains. “Bobby’s just completely over it. He’s not lured in by Hollywood or any of that stuff. He just finds the whole thing incredibly trivial and ridiculous.”

Ultimately, “Bobby just wants his job back,” Minear continues. “But, as you know, [Gerrard] has already been put in his place, and there’s no other empty fire station for him to captain.”

How is the 118 handling Gerrard as their captain?

“I think it’s harder for Buck than the rest,” says Minear. “Eddie was in the military, and both Hen and Chimney already served under this guy — they’ve been vaccinated, in a way. They know how to not let him get to them. Bobby is the only captain Buck has ever served under. Bobby really is his surrogate dad, so it’s just a lot harder for Buck. And not only did Hen and Chim serve under Gerarrd before, but she’s got other fish to fry. She’s trying to get her foster license back. She can’t be written up at work. She has to toe the line. And Chimney’s in a similar position because he’s the one who’s watching Mara with Maddie.”

Are Buck and Tommy still dating?

Minear says not much time has passed between the events of the season 7 finale and the season 8 premiere, so there haven’t been many developments in Buck and Tommy’s relationship. “But we see that they’re more comfortable together,” he explains. “We’d definitely call them a couple. Obviously they’re comfortable hanging out with Eddie, but when you couple with somebody, it takes up some of your time, so that also leaves Eddie a little bit out in the cold. Well, not out in the cold, but Buck doesn’t have as much free time as he did before, let’s put it that way.”

How is Eddie handling Christopher living with his grandparents?

“Eddie is trying very hard to keep a line of communication open with his son, and he’s finding it very difficult,” says Minear. “You have Zoom, you have FaceTime, you have all these things — but if the person on the other end doesn’t want to engage, it’s just very hard. So when we come into this season, Eddie is still mourning that loss and trying to figure out what to do about it, how to win his son back. In order to do that, he’s got to take a look at himself. He’s always been serving the country, raising his special needs kid, being a firefighter, doing all the things that define him. And, except for his job, everything was stripped away from him last year. Now it’s time for him to figure out who the hell he is.”

What’s going on with Mara’s foster situation and the councilwoman?

“One thing that I started doing last year is really showing the Buckley-Hans and Hen and Karen as an extended family out of the fire station. I put Maddie more into Hen’s world and into Maddie’s world, so it’s not like Mara is that far away for Hen and Karen,” says Minear. “I imagine that they’re going over there every day and spending a lot of time as a mingled family. So that’s great for them…until it’s not.”

As for councilwoman Olivia Ortiz (Verónica Falcón), whom Minear refers to as “Cruella”: “She’s running for mayor,” he teases before ominously adding, “and things will happen.”

On 9-1-1 they always do.