Much like the rest of her co-stars on 9-1-1, Angela Bassett has come to realize that her real life has paralleled that of her character, Sgt. Athena Grant-Nash. Like Athena and her husband, fire captain Bobby Nash (Peter Krause), Bassett and her husband, Courtney B. Vance, are finally empty nesters, with their twin children, Slater and Bronwyn, now in the middle of their freshman year of college.
In this week’s episode of the ABC procedural drama, Athena, LAPD’s finest patrol officer, is forced to confront the inevitable passage of time in a different way. After successfully executing an undercover sting to catch all but one of a group of chat room users who conspired to rob a jewelry store, Athena comes face-to-face with the alleged mastermind behind the operation. But during a foot chase to catch the suspect, Athena pulls her hamstring, preventing her from making the arrest.
As if walking around with a not-so-noticeable limp wasn’t enough, Athena is unhappy to learn that her boss, Elaine (Claudia Christian), has paired her up with probationary officer Matthew Sparks, the top recruit from the police academy (played by Zach Tinker) who specifically requested to ride with and study under Athena. Suddenly, while trying to keep up with Sparks, Athena has to face the fact that she is no longer as nimble as she once was.
“I think she’s going to be faced with the reality that even though she still has the mental capacity, the instincts [and] the experience, physicality is physicality, and years wear that down,” Bassett told TV Guide of her fierce character, whom she describes as a lone wolf at work. “So, she’s really going to have to get past her hubris, her ego, and take into account what the next years [of her life] will be and how she can best continue to serve.”
By the end of the episode, Athena seems to have found an answer. Athena and Sparks manage to track down the suspect at his place of work, a delivery company. But rather than join his superior in the patrol car, Sparks recklessly jumps on to the back of the truck that the suspect uses to get away. While Sparks manages to force the suspect to stop the truck before hitting a police barricade, Athena says she no longer wants to ride with Sparks, believing his overzealousness to be a potential liability on the streets.
Athena’s suspicions are later proven correct. After pulling over a mother who refuses to cooperate with his and his new partner’s orders, Sparks — who previously told Athena that he entered policing because he wanted to feel the same power that had left his alcoholic, abusive father scared out of his mind when the cops were called on him — accidentally pulls his gun rather than his taser out of his holster and shoots the woman. While the woman survives, Sparks’ career is over before it ever really begins.
Despite her negative experience with Sparks, Athena tells Elaine that she wants to ride with more rookies because she now views it as her duty to help train and mentor the next generation of officers, many of whom she knows could fall prey to the systemic issues of policing like Sparks did. “I think [Athena] being a person serving not only her community, but [also] serving those in partnership with her, a potential partnership with her will mean a great deal,” Bassett says.
In a rare, one-on-one interview about 9-1-1, Bassett opens up about the evolution of her onscreen counterpart, her thoughts on the show’s most epic emergencies (including her reaction to showrunner Tim Minear telling her that Athena would have to land a plane on a freeway earlier this season) — and why, despite her growing slate of projects, she remains committed to playing Athena for the foreseeable future.
