More than three months after 9-1-1 embarked on its midseason hiatus in November 2024, ABC’s hit procedural drama made its highly-anticipated return with Season 8, Episode 9, “Sob Stories.” The eventful installment showed the 118 responding to a fire at a local animal shelter. It revealed that Eddie (Ryan Guzman) is indeed moving to Texas to reunite with his son. It gave a glimpse at Buck (Oliver Stark) “spinning like a top.” And it showed Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), Athena (Angela Bassett), and missing persons detective Amber Braeburn (Abigail Spencer) team up to take down a serial killer in a chilling storyline based on the real-life Weepy Voiced Killer from the 80s.
While the team seemingly closed the disturbing case, right before the end credits rolled, in true 9-1-1 fashion, Amber snuck into Maddie’s home, knocked her unconscious, and dragged her away in an apparent kidnapping. If you thought that cliffhanger was terrifying, just wait until next week’s episode… “It’s probably the scariest episode we’ve ever done,” co-creator and showrunner Tim Minear told Decider over Zoom. “Jennifer Lynch directed it and did a phenomenal job. And Abigail is lights-out. She is so good.” While Braeburn’s motives aren’t entirely clear when “Sob Stories” ends, Minear promised more impressive duality from Spencer ahead. “She’s more than one person, as we will discover. Abigail is going to blow your mind in Episode 10,” the showrunner teased. And no surprise here, but Hewitt is “astounding” as well.
In celebration of 9-1-1‘s Season 8 return, Minear broke down Episode 9 with Decider, teased what’s next for Maddie, unpacked Buck and Eddie’s palpable tension, gave a look at the eventful season ahead, and more. We have to start at the end of Episode 809 with that major Detective Amber cliffhanger. Tell me a bit about how the great Abigail Spencer got involved with the show, and the duality we can expect from her in what I assume is a terrifying Episode 10.
It’s probably the scariest episode we’ve ever done. Jennifer Lynch directed it and did a phenomenal job. The whole thing was based on [the Weepy Voiced Killer], a real serial killer from the 80s. And Abigail is lights-out. She is so good. The way she got involved is that Sean Dawson, our casting director, was like, “I think she might be available!” And so she came in and just owned it. She’s going to blow your mind in Episode 10. And by the way, she’s all those characters, right? [The empathetic, determined detective and the violent kidnapper.] She’s not putting it on. She’s more than one person, as we will discover…
Yeah, they worked together before! And the entire cast fell in love with Abigail. Kenny Choi was texting me yesterday saying, “We should bring her back somewhere!” Jennifer has said she lost her voice when filming this arc and that it’s “the craziest thing she’s ever done on 9-1-1,” which I feel like is saying a lot. Do you agree with that assessment? And what can you tease about her performance and what she’ll be facing next week?
Oh my god, Jennifer is astounding. I mean, it’s what you’ve come to expect from Jennifer Love Hewitt. She’s completely believable and really draws you in and takes you on the ride with her. Is it the most insane thing we’ve done with with Maddie? I mean, it might be. It possibly even pushed a little bit more than the story with her ex-husband.
Oh, so we’re terrified. Even before the kidnaping, Maddie was going through some serious emotional trauma during those 9-1-1 calls. She told the killer at one point that she could relate to him. She was flashing back to when she left Jee-Yun. And she felt so guilty when he died. After Maddie had such a challenging postpartum journey, what made you want to have this installment for her when she was pregnant again?
In actuality, probably for almost technical reasons. In other words, I wanted to honor her postpartum journey from the first pregnancy, but I didn’t want to repeat it. So the fact that that’s built into her backstory and into the lore of her character, it serves as a lever of suspense in the next episode, and you’ll know exactly what I mean as soon as you see.
Before the Maddie storyline was even revealed, you said Buck would be “spinning like a top” this season. We see that a bit when he realizes Eddie is serious about moving to Texas. The tension between them in this episode reminded me of that jealousy we saw from Buck in 704, which led to Eddie’s basketball injury and that conversation between him and Maddie. Why do you think Buck is having such difficulty expressing himself when it comes to situations like this involving Eddie? And will he continue to explore those emotions as the season progresses?
Yeah, he will definitely have to confront them this season. I think it’s because that’s just Buck’s character. In the beginning of the episode, even though it’s going to hurt him, he doesn’t want to be selfish. He wants to help Eddie do the thing Eddie feels like he needs to do. So he’s going to put his own feelings aside. But as soon as he overhears Eddie say something to prospective renters in the house, he kind of takes that as an excuse to lay down on the floor and have a tantrum.
