9-1-1 is almost back for season 6! After a long summer hiatus, we’re reminding you of all that happened last season. Season 5 was an emotional season with Athena, Maddie, May, and the 118 going through all kinds of hardships and healing. Read all about it below!
The Black Out
The season started in the typical 9-1-1 away with a big emergency! Season 5’s consisted of a city-wide blackout that is caused by a hacker. The 118 encounter a variety of emergencies due to the blackout, including cars driving off a dock, zoo animals going wild, and a helicopter crash landing. The blackout ends up solving itself, though, with the hackers suddenly backing out of their demands and restoring the power.
Athena’s Worst Nightmare
The serial rapist, Jeffery Hudson, who Athena caught in season 3, is back for his trial. With everything with the blackout, he breaks free during the trial. Athena and Lou team up to get him. Lou finds Jeffery and arrests him, but in a shocking turn of events, Jeffery’s lawyer comes to his rescue and slices Lou’s throat. Luckily, Lou survives and has the scars to prove it.
Jeffery goes to Athena’s house, where Michael has let the neighborhood set up camp because they have a generator. With all of the commotion, Jeffery sneaks in and manages to kidnap Harry. Athena, Michael, and Bobby panic with Harry gone and work together along with the 118 to find him. A video someone took of Jeffery taking Harry points them in the right direction, and they track down where Jeffery is hiding out. Athena shoots Jeffery, and Harry is found safe.
The Breaking of Eddie Diaz
In the opening episode of season 5, Eddie has physically recovered from the shooting and is back to work. He hasn’t quite mentally recovered, though. It starts with him having a panic attack. In addition to his traumas before this, Eddie and Buck get held hostage by escaped prisoners, and one ends up committing suicide right next to Eddie. With each new trauma, we see continued cracks in Eddie’s composure.
By the time Christmas rolls around, Christopher is acting weird, and Eddie learns it’s because Christopher thinks he’s going to die. Eddie decides to leave the 118 because his son knows he’s safe and it’s what’s most important. He ends up transferring to dispatch as an LAFD liaison. It’s clear despite the change, he’s still struggling. After Chris approaches Eddie about his choice to leave, Eddie ends up going to Bobby and asking for his job back. Bobby pushes Eddie to seek help and denies his request to which Eddie doesn’t react well and replies with some harsh words toward Bobby.
Following the moment with Bobby, Eddie starts going to therapy with Frank again. Frank’s assignment leads Eddie to reach out to people he served in the Army with. When he learns everyone he saved is dead, it sends Eddie spiraling, and he ends up taking a baseball bat to his room. Chris calls Buck to help when he hears Eddie but can’t get a reply from him. Buck comes and comforts Chris while calming down and helping Eddie.
At a turning point with Eddie working towards coming back to the 118, Buck reminds Eddie of the good he’s done as a firefighter when Eddie is debating if going back is worth it. In a beautifully symbolic moment, during the finale, Eddie and Buck repair the holes in the wall of Eddie’s room. Later in the episode, Eddie officially returns to the 118.
The Downfall of Buck and Taylor
Following Buck and Taylor getting together at the end of season 4, their relationship is continued to be shown throughout the season in little moments like Taylor trying to support Buck in the absence of Maddie and Chimney, Buck supporting Taylor when issues with her dad arise, an awkward exchange of “I love you’s” and struggling to give Christmas presents.
In the second half of the season, the show introduces Lucy Donato. After saving a family with Buck on a call, she goes out for drinks with the 118, and she and Buck end up kissing. Trying to take Hen’s advice, Buck plans to come clean to Taylor but chickens out and asks her to move in instead. The next day, Bobby announces that Lucy is joining the team in Eddie’s absence. Buck does end up coming clean to Taylor, who is upset but decides that they can work it out.
A few episodes later, Taylor continues pursuing a story after Buck asks her not to. Shortly after, Buck avoids her until they finally cross paths at the loft and talk about it. The two fight, and Buck ends up breaking things off with her. Later, Taylor is shown giving Buck his keys back.
Maddie’s Post-Partum Depression
In season 4’s finale, Maddie was visibly struggling and asked Chimney for help, and going into season 5, she’s not doing much better but is seeing a doctor. During the blackout, Jee-Yun slips under the water during a bath. While she’s okay, the whole thing makes Maddie feel horrible and like a danger to Jee-Yun. She ends up recording a goodbye video for Chimney and dropping it and Jee-Yun off at the firehouse before taking off.
After leaving Jee-Yun at the firehouse, Maddie ends up on a beach. She sits staring at the water before getting up and walking in. She stays underwater for a moment, trying to drown, before deciding she wants to live and save herself. Back on the road, she ends up in Boston, where she lived with Doug when she first left home. In Boston, she gets a diagnosis that explains why her post-partum depression is so extreme. Following that, she starts getting treatment.
Chimney is heartbroken by her leaving and tries to understand it all. He continues to struggle more and more throughout the episode without her. After realizing that Buck has known all along and gets the full picture of what’s happened, he decides to go after Maddie. Maddie calls Buck, who hears something in the background that makes him think she’s in Boston. He tells Chimney, who decides to check it out. When there, he runs into Eli, who trained him as a paramedic. Eli gives him advice about it all and lets Chimney stay with him. He gets a volunteer paramedic job while he continues to look for Maddie in the area. When trying to help someone, Maddie runs into Eli and Chimney, who respond from the scene.
Following the run-in, Maddie and Chimney talk to each other about it all. Maddie opens up about her suicide attempt and that she didn’t go through with it because of Chimney and Jee-Yun. They still have things to work on but head home together. It’s revealed later that they mutually agree to break up on the way home. They work on being co-parents, and Maddie works on feelings of guilt for missing so much of Jee-Yun’s life. They hit a few bumps with things like Jee-Yun having to go to the hospital but get through it. At the end of the season, they aren’t back together but have a hopeful moment where they sit down together as a family.
Mayday, Mayday. Metro Dispatch Is On Fire
In Maddie’s absence, a dispatch icon named Claudette Collins starts working at Metro Dispatch. She and May immediately get off on a bad foot, with Claudette dismissing May and her ability to do her job. The two make progress over the season but are fighting again in episode 16. Sue puts them in the new quiet room to work out their issues. While they’re up there, an electrical problem sparks fire at the dispatch center. When Bobby and the 118 show up on the scene, he learns that May is still trapped inside.
While Bobby fights to get to May, May learns that Claudette has a fear of fire due to a prior accident and has to try to convince her to fight her fears so they can get out of there. Bobby finally gets to them, and they get out of the room. When Bobby and May run through the dispatch floor, the roof collapses. Bobby covers May to protect her and lets the majority of the rubble fall on him. Lucy goes back for them and discovers the rubble and Bobby’s helmet, leading to her calling out on the radio for help. In an emotional scene that’s paired with the song “Carry You” by Ruelle, the 118 rush to save their captain. After pulling him out, they all stand with him and help him and May out of the building. When they take Bobby to the hospital to double-check that everything is okay, May asks to ride with him while referring to him as her dad.
At the hospital, Claudette is brought in but has coded in the ambulance. May and the 118 watch as the doctors call her time of death upon arrival. The death hits May hard, and she’s confused by what happened because Claudette was okay when they got out of dispatch.
Jonah Greenway: A Hero’s Downfall
In the back half of season 5, the 118 gets two new members in the absence of Eddie and Chimney: the previously mentioned Lucy as well as Jonah Greenway. Jonah is eager to work with the 118 as he’s heard all about the 118 and their crazy emergencies and saves.
While working with Jonah, Hen starts to get suspicious of him as patients in his care are suddenly coding out of nowhere. He’s able to save them all before they actually die until he tries to do the same with the previously mentioned Claudette and can’t save her. Hen tells Chimney about her suspicions, and they work together to find out more. They learn that he saved someone as a child and seems to have been chasing the high from doing it ever since. In their searches, they also find that he’s worked at stations all around the country doing this same thing. Looking for more evidence, they get Taylor to show them the footage from the night Claudette died. It piques her interest, and she starts working on a story about it all, which Buck is upset about and asks her to stop.
After they have enough evidence, Chimney and Hen bring it to Bobby and Athena. Jonah realizes that they’re onto him and kidnaps Chimney and Hen. To get to Hen, he stops Chimney’s heart multiple times and brings him back while she watches. Eventually, the two break free, and Chimney is okay. Jonah gets arrested, and Taylor is first on the scene with her story ready.
Bobby’s Almost Relapse
Bobby struggles after everything with Jonah. The guilt of feeling like this is all his fault for letting Jonah into the firehouse, Claudette’s death, and Chimney and Hen’s suffering weigh heavy on him. May and Eddie pick up on him acting off and try to help him. Eddie stops by Bobby and Athena’s right before; unknown to Eddie, Bobby is about to relapse. He tells Bobby that none of this is his fault and he couldn’t have known. Eddie also reminds Bobby that he has done a lot of good, including saving Eddie’s life. When he leaves, Bobby pours the bottle of alcohol that he bought down the drain.
Hen and Karen Renew Their Vows
When Hen’s mom, Toni, learns that Karen is upset about her missing Hen and Karen’s wedding and how upset Hen was on their wedding day when she didn’t show up, she decides to throw them a surprise vow renewal ceremony. Later in the episode, Hen is confused when Buck, Eddie, and Chimney show up in suits. They realize that Toni didn’t let her in yet because the event is actually a surprise vow renewal for her and Karen.
The pair sit down with Toni, and she reveals that it’s all for them. They continue to talk about everything that happened in the past, and Toni apologizes. Hen and Karen renew their vows in a beautiful backyard ceremony with their former foster daughter Nia as the flower girl, their son Denny walking them down the aisle, and all of their friends and family in attendance this time.
A Little Bit About Ravi
Ravi Panikkar joined the 118 in season 4, but we didn’t learn much about his life until season 5. During the season, we see Buck terrorize him with a chainsaw and more, but we also see Ravi open up through the season, especially to Hen. After losing a patient who died trying to save a nurse that cared for him in a hospital fire, Ravi reveals to Hen that he had cancer as a child and spent most of his childhood in a hospital. He tells her about how the doctors and nurses that treated him became his family, so he understands that the patient made that choice.
Other Storylines
- Michael and David get engaged and leave for Haiti to help with relief efforts. This is a more permanent exit with Rockmond Dunbar leaving the show.
- Taylor reveals the demons of her past when her dad’s parol hearing, for the time he’s serving from murdering her mom, comes up.
- Eddie visits his family in Texas and ends up fighting with his dad. The fight revealed the layers of generational trauma they’ve both suffered, and they agreed to work on fixing their relationship together.
- Toni is reunited with an old flame, and the pair get engaged!
- At the end of the season, Bobby buys tickets for a cruise for him and Athena to make up for them never having a honeymoon.
- May decides to go to college after putting it off for a few years to work at dispatch.
9-1-1 is back on September 19 at 8 p.m. ET on FOX. Check out our other coverage of the show here!