Where’s the Emergency? ‘9-1-1’ Has a Glaring Issue with Follow-Through

9-1-1 premiered back in 2018 to high acclaim — and with good reason. Its stories were complex and captivating, pulling us in week after week for all of Season 1.

Now here we are after three full seasons, and one thing is obvious — 9-1-1 continues to have a glaring issue with follow-through on its so-called dramatic stakes. There is a significant disconnect between the viewers and the anxiety the show is trying to create.

9-1-1 needs to bring more emotionally satisfying content to the lives of the characters we love the most. It’s a drama; happy endings shouldn’t be a guarantee. We need to feel the urgency of these situations through the follow-through and the fall-out.

One of 9-1-1‘s biggest issues is its inability to follow through on complex and intriguing storylines for all of its characters. The biggest missteps come in the stories of Chim, Michael, Eddie, and Buck. They all have major traumas, yet the show either fails to create a lasting consequence or it makes the ending so positive it is no longer believable.

Let’s start with Chim because his character mishaps date back to Season 1. Chim has seen the most trauma, but for viewers that come into the show in Season 3, they’d never know it.

That’s proof that character development and story follow-through are severely lacking. Chim has a metal bar go through his head early on Season 1. What would have typically caused some kind of damage or brain atrophy is written off as being “miraculously” damage-free.

How is that even possible? The show explains that the bar hit his brain at just the right angle that no lasting damage is caused. Okay, but what about the follow-up?

Chim never really mentions his brush with death ever again, and except for a tiny little scar on his forehead viewers can easily forget it as well. It would be nice to see Chim talk about it or even have a co-worker mention it from time to time — even if just in passing.

Then, cut to Season 2, where Chim is attacked by Maddie’s violent ex-husband. He is stabbed in the abdomen and left bleeding on the pavement. He survives, yet again, with practically no lasting damage to his body. 

The show explains that he had abdominal surgery and that there is internal bleeding, but the lack of fall-out from his injuries and emotional follow-up is concerning. Chim has now had two brushes with death and the show dismisses it all as if it isn’t a big deal.

Even stranger is the lack of any lasting psychological problems. With everything Chim has seen in his own personal life (the loss of his best friend, rebar through his head, being stabbed) it’s hard to believe he wouldn’t have needed therapy at some point. Other characters are shown going to therapy. So why not Chim? 

Chim continues to function as a firefighter much as he has from the beginning — there is no change in the way he approaches life or the job. He doesn’t show any sign that he even thinks much about what happened to him, and he definitely never talks about those events. 

Perhaps Chim is the type of person who buries their emotions and doesn’t really want to talk things out. If so, then embarking on the road toward parenthood could open up the lines of communication between both Chim and Maddie about all that they have faced separately and together. Let’s hope that will be the case.

Which leads me to the next character contention I have: Michael. Here is yet another example of the show creating a miraculous positive outcome instead of going for the more emotionally realistic one.

For the second half of Season 3, 9-1-1 lays it on thick that Michael is going to die from his tumor. There are many instances where his children have discussions about his tumor or discuss their lives once he is gone.

The show even offers a moment between Bobby, Michael, and Harry where Michael teaches Bobby his yearly tradition with Harry. This makes it clear that Bobby will be taking the reigns next year because Michael will be gone.

Then on the Season 3 finale, Michael finds out that maybe his cancer isn’t life-threatening after all and that his tumor shrank. Personally, I would have preferred his news from the doctor to continue to be bad news.

In my review of 9-1-1 Season 3 Episode 18, “What’s Next?” I likened this news to a friend telling you one month they have terminal cancer and then the next month shrugging it off as not existing. Michael’s story isn’t emotionally exciting in the least — in fact, it’s frustrating beyond measure.

As it stands at the end of Season 3, 9-1-1 has yet to have a major death. That in itself is a big strike against the believability of a show like this.

On a drama about first responders, there are no longer any high stakes, because every time something major happens, only minor characters suffer death or traumatic ends. The most significant character to die is Eddie’s ex-wife Shannon.

For what it’s worth, Shannon’s death doesn’t necessarily count as high stakes because it doesn’t have a huge ripple effect across the characters of the show. It really only affects Eddie and Christopher.

Eddie hasn’t been on the show as long as some of the other characters, but he has had a few close scrapes. When he goes into that burning house by scaling the wall like Spider-Man, we are terrified for his safety because we haven’t yet been numbed to the fact that he too will always come out on top.

Even when his ex-wife dies, we only see a glimpse of him in therapy. Shannon is supposedly someone that meant a lot to him, and yet he shows more emotion when Buck pulls that lawsuit and they can no longer hang out together.

We don’t get the emotional payout on his relationship with her until his life is on the line during a Season 3 rescue in a well. And this is where things really get dicey for us as viewers.

Of course, we don’t want to see young Christopher orphaned within the same year, but at the same time, give us something that pumps our blood. Make us cry until we are so heartbroken we can’t cry anymore. Create a shift in the dynamic of the team.

Some of the best shows have utterly heartbreaking character deaths that bring about a change in storytelling and dynamic. Eddie could be that character for 9-1-1, but instead, they managed to rescue him from a collapsed well hole. 

When we saw Buck on the ground screaming for his friend and trying to use his own hands to dig him out, I was on the edge of my seat expecting a huge payout, only to be disappointed when everything was tied up in a bow and left in the corner forgotten. 

There is no emotional payout because once he is healed the injuries are hardly mentioned again. 

9-1-1 has also failed to give us an in-depth exploration of Eddie and Christopher’s traumas. In the span of six months, they lost Shannon and both went through a tsunami where they thought they’d never see each other again.

To explore that level of trauma with a child is the mark of great storytelling. Unfortunately, the show mentions Christopher in therapy once and the therapist even mentions that it will take time for Christopher to open up, but by the end of the episode his trauma is “solved” by a heart-to-heart with his dad and then never brought up again.

Even Eddie deserves to have more of that emotional follow-through. After all, he is a veteran and he has seen so much through his job. 

Once again, we get a small mention when he is going through the steps of also helping Christopher, but nothing else. Maybe Eddie isn’t the type to easily sit down and talk to a therapist, but give him a bit of guy talk with Buck then, or something along those lines.

While Chim, Michael, and Eddie are all fine examples of these major issues, the best example is, hands down, Buck.

In the span of three seasons, Buck has seen his sex addiction almost cost him his job, almost died on a date, being ghosted had a firetruck fall on him in an explosion, and then further injured his leg during a tsunami.

All of these events lead him to fight back against the system trying to prevent him from continuing his career as a firefighter because he’s no longer fit for duty.

Just reading all these events gets my heart pumping. After all, on paper Evan “Buck” Buckley is an exciting and complicated character. However, that doesn’t translate well on screen.

When Bobby decides to remove Buck from active duty, it seems the show is finally giving us the detailed cause and effect we’ve been craving. However, by the middle of the season, everything is resolved and Buck is back on duty.

It would be more compelling to have Buck forced out of active firefighter duty and into a desk job. In a real-world situation, Buck would be off active duty and riding a desk for the remainder of his career. So why is 9-1-1 unwilling to explore such an avenue for him?

High-stakes drama needs, at least occasionally, an equally high-stakes payout. Make us work for the happy ending — plain and simple.

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9-1-1 is set to return midseason in 2021 on FOX.

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