By Poppy-Jay St. Palmer
Copyright thepinknews
With 9-1-1 season 9 just a few weeks away, fans finally have some clarity in what the 118 will be up against in the next major opening emergency.
The trailer for the premiere episode, titled ‘Eat the Rich’, depicts Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), Chimney (Kenneth Choi), Buck (Oliver Stark) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) looking horrified as what appear to be asteroids fill the sky above Los Angeles. “What the hell [are] bisexual firefighters supposed to do [about] this?” one fan asked in a viral post.
The show’s infamous large-scale season openers have been getting bigger and weirder with each passing year. But as ranking the best opening emergencies has been done to death already, we’ve decided to rank the show’s best minor emergencies instead.
We’re using the term ‘minor’ very loosely, so here are the parameters: in order to qualify for a spot on the list, the emergencies in question can’t have taken most of an episode’s focus (things like the well collapse, the bank heist and the beenado aren’t eligible), and they can’t have resulted in a major plot or character arc (we’re talking firetruck bomb, lightning strike, rebar, etc.).
Did your favourite make the cut? Read our list of the most weird, wonderful, emotional and chilling emergency calls below to find out…
20. The man in the window (season 1, “Full Moon (Creepy AF)”)
9-1-1 has always been partial to a Halloween episode, but nothing on the show has managed to chill us to the bone as much as an old lady being quietly terrorised by a hooded, faceless man staring at her through the window in season 1. Things took an ever more sinister turn, however, when Hen realised that the man hadn’t been looking in, but rather was standing behind her and casting a reflection on the dark glass. Pure chills.
19. The smurf (season 3, “Christmas Spirit”)
In a case of ‘would that actually happen?’, a woman suffering from toothache accidentally overdosed on benzocaine and woke up on Christmas morning completely blue. The smurf lady case is definitely on the sillier end of the emergency scale, but it can indeed actually happen. In fact, it did happen to a woman from Rhode Island in 2019. The smurf lady makes it to the list for being so iconic that she made another appearance on the show (with another dental-related emergency) in season 8.
18. The DMV lesbians (season 5, “Past is Prologue”)
After falling into a sinkhole caused by an exploding oil well in the middle of a driving test, two women fall for each other. While one of them is bleeding out. And the other is trying to keep her alive until help arrives. There’s oil and blood all over the place, but the whole emergency is just really cute. The women’s commitment to flirting through the trauma is actually impressive. Unlike many emergencies on this show, we get a bit of lovely closure too, with one of the women asking the other out in the hospital as the episode draws to a close. Let’s go, lesbians!
17. Trapped-By-Bridezilla-100-Percent (season 4, “Suspicion”)
From an interrogation scene to a wedding dress going up in flames to a rousing ‘I am Spartacus’ moment, this whole pre-wedding sequence is camp and silly in the best way. The defence rests.
16. I’ll be home for Christmas Marine (season 2, “Merry Ex-Mas”)
There’s nothing like a good family reunion video to activate the old tear ducts, and this sequence is proof. After helping first responders with a bus crash, a marine gets to make his daughter’s Christmas wishes come true. The 118 rush him across town in the firetruck, arriving just in time to interrupt a sweet school choir rendition of ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ for an emotional family reunion. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
15. Carbon monoxide poisoning (season 8, “Holy Mother of God”)
When you say ‘pure chaos’, the events of the carbon monoxide leak at Bobby’s estranged preach mom’s church come to mind. Spirits were high (so to speak) until a gas leak caused pretty much the whole congregation to flip out and start hallucinating. It all comes to a crescendo when Buck attempts a daring rooftop rescue to get a very confused woman down from the cross, and utters one of the best lines of the season: ‘Ma’am, I’m not Satan, my name is Buck.’ Amen.
14. Molten chocolate (season 2, “Careful What You Wish For”)
We know there’s no good way to go, but drowning in a vat of molten chocolate to Bow Wow Wow’s ‘I Want Candy’ is probably on the better end of the traumatic death scale. In this instance, the victim did survive, thanks to interim Captain Han briefly panicking before utilising all his resources by calling up chef Bobby for advice.
13. Tonsil stones (season 6, “Lost and Found”)
Stress dreams of teeth falling out quickly turn into a real medical emergency for one unfortunate woman in “Lost & Found”. Watching her cough up calcified tonsil stones (another thing that can actually happen to you) while the 118 provide graphic descriptions of her bad breath is just nasty, and bring this call to the list by virtue of being so gross, awful and, most importantly, memorable.
12. The Bachelor mansion (season 7, “Buck, Bothered and Bewildered”)
In perhaps one of the most ridiculous emergencies on the show, the 118 rock up to none other than the infamous Bachelor mansion to help a woman that has stuck herself to the driveway with industrial-strength glue. It’s the crossover no one expected nor asked for, but it was certainly memorable, and the gang’s reactions to cameos from Jesse Palmer and Joey Graziadei make it a fun romp.
11. Alien hand syndrome (season 7, “You Don’t Know Me”)
Maybe this unusual emergency – in which a motivational speaker’s right hand starts violently moving of its own accord – is ranked too high up on this list, but the whole sequence is silly, high-energy and fun with some wonderful comedic beats and marvellous over-the-top acting from all involved parties.
10. Maggots! (season 2, “This Life We Choose”)
This live-streamed emergency in which an influencer squeezes the larva of a bot fly from her own cheek has gone down in 9-1-1 history for two reasons: for being gross and horrible, and for addressing that Buck and Eddie would make a good couple via users in the livestream comments (in season 2, mind you). And we have only one thing to say to that: hell yeah.
9. The Speed rescue (season 5, “Outside Looking In”)
A road-tripping family of four receive a mysterious phone call telling them their car will explode if they drop below 55mph in this high octane Speed parody. Driving alongside the car, the LAFD teams up with both the LAPD and Eddie at the dispatch centre in an attempt to defuse the bomb, as Buck and Lucy Donato, making her recurring guest star debut, do some sick stunts atop the moving vehicles. The whole thing is a great time.
8. The car wash guy (season 1, “Point of Origin”)
The emergency itself – a car wash worker getting caught up in one of those big spinning brush things – is pretty fun and silly in itself, but what makes it memorable is the lovely moments between the 118. With Chimney still in the rebar coma and Bobby coming off the back of a bad break in his sobriety, the call adds a bit of levity and connection as Hen, Buck and Bobby and Buck crack up together, and the latter finally finds joy again after a period of darkness.
7. The freeway shark (season 2, “New Beginnings”)
A freeway shark! A shark on the freeway! And they got her back to the ocean on the firetruck! As far as fist-pump-the-air moments go, this was a good one. We needn’t say more.
6. The bike chase (season 6, “Animal Instincts”)
9-1-1 loves a literal song choice moment, and Buck stealing a BMX to race to save Chimney – who has been accidentally kidnapped by a drunk driver – while Queen’s ‘Bicycle Race’ blasts over the scene is up there with the best of them. This show is rarely subtle, but we wouldn’t want it to be.
5. The escalator proposal (season 2, “Stuck”)
An escalator proposal-gone-wrong makes the top five for being a pure emotional gut punch. It started off pretty horrific – with the proposer in question falling through the top step of the escalator into the mechanisms below – but it got even more devastating from there. Horror quickly turned to sorrow as the man, now yanked out of the gears by Chimney, suddenly went into cardiac arrest and succumbed to his injuries, leaving his fiancée of mere minutes weeping over his body. It’s an emergency that’s stayed with us these past 7 seasons.
4. The tapeworm (season 1, “Full Moon (Creepy AF)”)
“Full Moon (Creepy AF)” makes its second appearance on this list with a real doozy. After complaints of unbearable stomach cramps, a man is rushed to hospital and insists something is threatening to bust him open from the inside. Realising the problem, Buck proceeds to pull an extremely long tapeworm out of the man’s ass, much to Bobby’s, the man’s and the man’s husband’s horror, thus unlocking a brand new fear for many 9-1-1 fans across the globe.
3. See me, Norman! (season 2, “Buck, Actually”)
The moment Lola climbed up onto that freeway sign, robe on and gun in pocket, she stole the whole damn show. What started as a pretty strange call involving a confused flasher quickly morphed into a huge romantic saga once her husband Norman got involved. A well-meaning but unusual pep talk from Buck, gun pointed straight at him, didn’t go amiss either. Although Lola was ultimately arrested and carted off in Athena’s police car, the resolution was a feel-good romantic moment that solidified Lola and Norman’s relationship in a wonderful way. We barely know these people, why do we love them so much? That’s the power of 9-1-1.
2. The 118 on LSD (season 2, “Doped”)
The 118 head to a toddler beauty pageant to tend to a woman with the heel of a stiletto through her cheek, which is already pretty wild. But what makes the call so beloved is the fact that several of the first responders at the scene are high as kites. Buck, Eddie and Hen trip balls after unknowingly scarfing down a batch of brownies laced with LSD, and Chimney and Athena have a bad time trying to wrangle them. It’s that wonderful mix of drama and ridiculousness that we love to see on this show. Drug those firefighters more often!
1. Thomas and Mitchell (season 2, “Buck, Actually”)
9-1-1 often does a great job at making you care very quickly, and the number one spot goes to the emergency that went above and beyond in that department. Through the combination of a scrapbook and an upbeat musical montage, the emergency’s set-up introduces Thomas and Mitchell, two men that met, fell in love, and lived a long and beautiful life together, before dropping us back into the present day. But, ultimately, tragedy strikes. On their wedding anniversary, Mitchell is crushed by a rolling SUV and is already dead when the 118 get to the scene. Overcome with his grief, Thomas himself dies while saying goodbye, but not before a devastatingly moving heart-to-heart with Buck. When Buck remarks that he could only hope to find a love as good as Thomas and Mitchell’s, Thomas replies: ‘You don’t find it, son. You make it.’ Just stunning.
9-1-1 season 9 premieres on 9 October on ABC in the US. You can stream 9-1-1 seasons 1-8 on Disney+ in the UK now.
