Last December, Jennifer Love Hewitt declared that she had just finished shooting “the craziest thing” that her 9-1-1 character, Maddie Han, had ever been through besides surviving her abusive ex-husband, Doug Kendall (played by her real-life spouse, Brian Hallisay), in the second season. Hewitt wasn’t lying.
In the two-part return of the high-octane ABC first-responder drama, Maddie crosses a moral line as a 9-1-1 dispatcher with an alleged serial killer and then gets assaulted and drugged in her own home by none other than Amber Braeburn (a terrifying Abigail Spencer), the LAPD detective who secretly concocted an elaborate scheme to make Maddie believe she had indirectly killed that serial killer.
The midseason premiere saw Maddie taking a series of calls from a serial killer using a digitally altered voice to confess to kidnapping yet another young girl (despite admitting that part of them no longer wanted to do that anymore). The killer had figured out a creepy way to get under Maddie’s skin — they sent the police to the wrong address, made Maddie guilty for betraying their trust, and even brought up Maddie’s own daughter with Chimney (Kenneth Choi), Jee-Yun, on a subsequent call to the dispatch center. Knowing that she was the last first-responder who could convince the killer not to harm his latest victim, Maddie attempted to appeal to the killer’s darkest impulses, suggesting that they should turn the gun on themselves rather than on the young girl. By the time Athena (Angela Bassett) and her fellow officers arrived at the crime scene, Richard Bullock, the supposed serial killer, had suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound — but Maddie still felt guilty for failing to be a lifeline for Richard. (In fact, she was the opposite of a lifeline for him.)
After putting Jee-Yun to bed later that evening, Maddie was struck from behind, drugged with chloroform, and then kidnapped by Braeburn, who is revealed to be the actual serial killer on those 9-1-1 calls. Braeburn, as it turns out, was kidnapped herself as a teenager 25 years ago and eventually escaped, but she has since developed a kind of split personality disorder. Braeburn had essentially drugged Richard — who became her patsy — with chloroform and then placed his finger on the trigger to make it look like he had died of a self-inflicted gunshot. But knowing that Maddie would likely put the pieces together, Braeburn’s darker side decided the call-center operator needed to be eliminated.
While Braeburn tries to “assist” in the search for Maddie and feigns concern for her disappearance, Maddie, chained up in Braeburn’s basement, finds increasingly creative ways to survive. She uses a nail to cut the duct tape binding her hands together. She stops Braeburn from injecting her with a lethal dose of fentanyl multiple times, appealing to the side of Braeburn that no longer wants to be a killer. She uses a piece of metal from a pop can to unlock the chain around her ankle. And after digging around, she learns that Braeburn was a former kidnapping victim herself.
But the dire situation comes to a head when Braeburn re-kidnaps Jayna (Chloe Csengery), the teen she and Richard had held hostage a day earlier, and threatens to kill her in front of Maddie. When Chimney shows up unexpectedly at Braeburn’s front door, Maddie fights to stop her kidnapper from killing Chimney — only for Braeburn to slash Maddie’s throat and leave her to bleed out on the basement floor. Athena then calls Chimney to deliver the news that Braeburn is Maddie’s kidnapper. As Braeburn holds Chimney at gunpoint, Maddie uses every last bit of strength she has left to bust out of the basement and strike Braeburn on the back of the head with a hammer. And right when Braeburn looked like she was going to finish off both Maddie and Chimney, Athena comes to the rescue with a single shot, killing Braeburn instantly.
Thankfully, Maddie, who is also pregnant with her and Chimney’s second child, survives her surgery. And Chimney gets to reveal some amazing news: They’re having a boy!
On a quick call with TV Guide, Hewitt opened up about how she came to understand Maddie’s actions and motivations as she found herself in yet another life-threatening situation, the experience of sparring with Spencer in a standout episode directed by Jennifer Lynch — and how, for better or for worse, the events of these two episodes have changed Maddie forever.
