After a stressful and heart-wrenching week following season 4 of 9-1-1‘s penultimate episode, the long-awaited finale has finally arrived. In the final moments of episode 13, “Suspicion,” Eddie was shot by a sniper while standing in the middle of the street, and we were left with a stunned, blood-covered Buck while his best friend collapsed to the ground in a pool of his own blood. Keep reading to find out what happened in tonight’s episode, “Survivors.”
The episode opens immediately where the previous one left off. As bullets continue to rain down on the LAFD, Buck manages to shake himself out of the shocked stupor that he found himself in after Eddie was shot. He crawls under the firetruck, frantically yelling for Eddie, and grabs his arm and drags him underneath to safety. Buck hoists Eddie up into the firetruck as the rest of the firefighters pile in, continuing to dodge bullets from the sniper, and they race to the hospital. Eddie is still alive, but he’s lost a lot of blood, and Buck is barely holding it together as he hovers over him. As the doctors and nurses wheel Eddie into the hospital, a fellow firefighter asks Buck if he’s okay. The man walks away and Buck says, “No.”
Athena, having heard about the shooting, arrives at the scene and tells Detective Denvers that she wants to assist. Meanwhile, Buck walks out of the hospital to find Taylor waiting for him. He tells her that he needs to go and see Christopher, and she insists on giving him a ride because he doesn’t have his car there. Buck’s hands are shaking.
Chimney fills Maddie in on how Eddie’s doing—he’s going to be in surgery for the next few hours—and while they’re talking, Maddie tells him that another firefighter has been shot elsewhere. Athena and Denvers watch the footage from the latest shooting and surmise that the sniper is specifically targeting firefighters.
Buck arrives at Eddie’s house to find Christopher sitting in his room. Kneeling down in front of him, he tells Christopher that his dad isn’t coming home tonight because he got hurt at work. Innocently, Christopher asks if he was hurt in a fire, and Buck takes a deep breath as he goes on to explain that someone hurt Eddie on purpose. Christopher asks Buck if his dad is going to be okay, and Buck—sniffling, with tears running down his cheeks—reassures him that Eddie is a fighter. But based on his red-rimmed eyes and the broken look on his face, Buck needs someone to reassure him of that as well. And thus a text message from Bobby arrives in a timely manner, informing him that Eddie is out of surgery and the doctors say it went well. Relief appears to wash over Buck, and he begins to sob into his hands beside Christopher, who puts an arm around him to comfort him.
As Athena and Denvers try to scope out where the sniper is operating from, we learn that the 118 will be wearing bulletproof vests on the job for the time being, and the LAPD will have additional officers working every shift now. Ana sits by Eddie’s bedside in the hospital as he sleeps, and we see that Buck has been staying at Eddie’s to take care of Christopher. The 118 continues to respond to calls, but with extra safety precautions now, like a SWAT team escort complete with ballistic shields. Athena and Bobby sit down and have a serious talk, reflecting back on how he felt when she nearly lost her life after the attack. She also shares why she made the choice not to quit afterward. Elsewhere, Carla arrives at the Diaz household to find Christopher and Buck eating breakfast and has a chat with Buck.
The 118 responds to a dangerous call, in which a construction worker is pinned by a cable incredibly high up on a crane. With the way he’s bleeding out, which they can see from the safety camera, Hen and Chimney estimate that he doesn’t have much time left. And SWAT is still too far out, so they don’t have a means of protection. Buck, being Buck, takes it upon himself to perform the rescue, Bobby’s authorization be damned. Completely exposed and risking his life, Buck climbs up the crane’s ladder and manages to rescue the victim without trouble. Afterward at the station, Buck approaches Bobby because he hasn’t said a word to him. Bobby tells him that he’s accepted the fact that Buck will never be the guy that thinks before he acts, but he also calls him out on his deliberate choice to make himself a target. Bobby assures him that what happened to Eddie wasn’t his fault, and Buck laments that he was just the guy standing there who couldn’t do anything to protect him.
Taylor is hanging out with Buck at his apartment as he packs a bag of clothes to bring to Eddie’s house, and she begins to needle into him about the reckless choices he made that day. She kisses him, but then apologizes afterward and blames it on the wine. Buck suggests that they should talk about it, but she leaves instead. Before Buck can stop her, he gets a call from Ana: Eddie is awake. Buck rushes over to the hospital, and he sits down at Eddie’s bedside as he video chats with Christopher. When Eddie asks Buck if Christopher is doing okay, Buck tells him that he’s doing better than he is, and admits that he lost it when he told Christopher that Eddie got shot. He apologizes, but Eddie assures him, “You were there for him when I couldn’t be. That’s what matters.”
Athena and Denvers arrive at the station, and Chief Pate informs them that they’ve discovered that the sniper’s bullets belong to the LAPD. A SWAT team arrives at the household of Kenneth Malone, a former SWAT long rifleman who was fired six months ago after he accidentally shot a hostage.
At the dispatch center, Maddie tells Sue that she’s decided she’s quitting because she feels like she’s failing Jee-Yun. Sue watches her with sympathy as Maddie explains the troubling symptoms that she’s experiencing, and Maddie gets defensive when she thinks Sue is going to tell her she should talk to a counselor, but Sue merely asks her to make sure she talks to Chimney about what’s going on.
Athena begins questioning Kenneth, who tells her that he wasn’t fired from his job, he quit. And what’s important to him isn’t clearing his name for what happened, but learning to live with his mistake. He assures her that they have the wrong guy. Meanwhile, May takes a 9-1-1 call from a man named Ethan who’s trapped in a fire. The 118 arrive at the scene, no longer wearing bulletproof vests as a result of Kenneth’s arrest. However, Athena and Denvers discuss the fact that Kenneth’s gun was found buried in his yard, and they both agree that they don’t think he’s the sniper after all. But the ammo was his … so who had access to it?
The 118 is ordered by the LAPD to evacuate the burning building, but Bobby continues on and rushes into a room because he thinks that he’s found Ethan’s body on the ground. It turns out to be a mannequin. As he looks around in confusion, a man steps out from behind him and shoots him. Athena arrives and informs the 118 that the man who called in the fire isn’t a victim, he’s the sniper. He was Kenneth’s partner. After Kenneth quit, the LAPD realized that Ethan was a problem and they removed him from duty. Inside, Ethan demands that Bobby call the rest of the firefighters back into the building. The Captain refuses.
Despite Buck and everyone else’s protests, Athena insists that they suit her up in firefighter gear so that she can go inside and rescue Bobby. Armed with her gun, she goes in alone. Ethan stalks around the room, telling Bobby that the gunman from the prior hostage situation was only alive because firefighters saved him from overdosing multiple times. LAPD has a sniper on a rooftop, but there isn’t a clean shot through the smokey window. Athena steps into the room, walks through the flames with her gun raised, and she shoots Ethan. Bobby stares in amazement as the armed firefighter removes their helmet and he realizes that it’s his wife. Later, at the hospital, Athena tells Bobby that Ethan didn’t make it. Bobby remarks that Athena literally walked through fire to save him.
Taylor shows up at Buck’s apartment. Buck tells her that he didn’t chase after her because he’s spent a long time feeling like he isn’t enough, and he doesn’t want to do that anymore. So if Taylor doesn’t want him … She smiles, tells him she does, and kisses him.
Chimney finds Maddie despondently laying on the couch, and she informs him that she quit her job. She also admits that she feels like she’s losing her mind, and she needs help. Meanwhile, Hen, Karen, Hen’s mother, and Denny are at the park when Nia comes running over to them. She runs around giving hugs to Momma Hen, Momma Karen, and Grammy, and then runs over to see Big Brother Denny. Nia’s mother is at a loss for words, and she expresses how awkward she feels to finally be meeting her daughter’s foster parents. She thanks Hen and Karen, and they invite her to sit down and have lunch with them.
Buck walks into Eddie’s hospital room to tell him that the nurse is getting his medication and discharge paperwork ready. Eddie beckons him to come over, because he’s been meaning to talk to him about something. He goes on to tell Buck that after the well collapsed on top of him, he began to wonder what would have happened to Christopher if he didn’t survive. So he went to his attorney and changed his will.
EDDIE: Someday, if I didn’t make it … Christopher would be taken care of. By you. It’s in my will. If I die, you become Christopher’s legal guardian.
Buck, stunned, questions whether Eddie needed his consent for that. Eddie tells him that he could refuse, yes, but he knows that he wouldn’t. Buck confirms as much as he replies, but then goes on to inquire about Christopher’s grandparents, the rest of his family. Eddie reminds him that after Shannon left, all of them tried to guilt him into giving Christopher to them. That’s not what he wanted then, and it’s not what he wants now.
BUCK: If it came to that, wouldn’t they fight for him?
EDDIE: I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. But no one will ever fight for my son as hard as you. That is what I want for him.
BUCK: Well, you said you did this last year. Why are you just telling me now?
EDDIE: Because, Evan, you came in here the other day and said you thought it would have been better if it had been you who was shot. You act like you’re expendable. But you’re wrong.
We end on a voiceover from Bobby as we pan through a dinner at the Grant-Nash household, Chimney comforting Maddie, Eddie and Buck arriving at the Diaz household for a surprise welcome home party for Eddie, the Wilson picnic, and a certain new firefighter completing his exam. Welcome to the team, firefighter Albert Han.
As this episode depicts postpartum depression, which 1 in 7 moms and 1 in 10 dads suffer from, it closes with an important reminder to audiences that help is available from Postpartum Support International. HelpLine: 1-800-944-4773, or visit www.postpartum.net.
9-1-1 was recently renewed for season 5, which will premiere this fall on FOX and is currently slated to remain in its 8 p.m. Monday night time slot.
