‘9-1-1’ Ends With Shocking Cliffhanger for Eddie

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 10 “Handle With Care.”]

Oh, if only Eddie (Ryan Guzman) realized the trouble he was stepping into the moment he tried to offer some advice to a teen the 118 previously rescued. Abigail (Fallon Heaslip), the young girl whose parents performed an exorcism on her when she had tetanus, returns in the Thursday, January 29, episode of 9-1-1.

Hen (Aisha Hinds) and Eddie both testify, with the latter’s history of anger issues coming up. Eddie says he used to be angry, but insists he isn’t anymore. After, outside the courtroom, Abigail approaches to thank them, then after Hen’s called away, asks Eddie how he learned to be less angry. Time, therapy, friends, and family helped, he tells her. She only has time; she can’t afford therapy, and she doesn’t have any family or friends. She’s aged out of the foster care system, and all her grandmother did was give her her car, which she’s now living in.

Eddie brings her back to the 118, and it’s pretty immediate that something‘s going to happen. She says she only remembers Eddie’s face from the day she was rescued. She looks to Eddie when Buck (Oliver Stark) says the family’s also the people you choose. She’s not happy when Eddie brings in Alex (Aimee Teegarden), a therapist from the LAPD’s SMART Team (Systemwide Mental Assessment Response Team), and Alex tells her about faith-based transitional housing she’s already gotten her a place in. She only agrees to accept Alex’s help (including an offer to buy socks) when Eddie talks to her. (Is anyone else wondering if they’re setting up Alex to be Eddie’s new love interest?)

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Then, Abigail shows up at Eddie’s house while he’s sitting down for dinner with Christopher … and the firefighter doesn’t ask how she knew his address? Instead, he seemingly just lets her invite herself to dinner, during which she asks about Christopher’s age, questions if Alex is just a colleague to Eddie, and follows him into the kitchen when he’s cleaning up. There, she tells him that her parents were acquitted and hugs him, seeking comfort. When he brings up that it’s getting late and she has a long drive ahead of her, she thinks he’s inviting her to spend the night — on the couch, she’s quick to add. He makes it clear he’s not, but assures her she’s not alone as she leaves.

The episode then ends as we figured it would: Abigail goes to Christopher’s school and tells him Eddie’s busy at work and asks her to pick him up, and Chris gets in her car with her. And with that, we’re very worried about what’s going to happen next (and questioning if Eddie has told anyone about the warning signs that were very obvious).

Elsewhere in the episode, it’s Harry’s (Elijah M. Cooper) first day as the 118’s probie, and Chimney’s (Kenneth Choi) been having nightmares of everything that can go wrong and lead to his death, like getting hit by a truck at a call. We can’t blame him for being cautious after dreaming of Athena (Angela Bassett) warning him, “Don’t you look to me for comfort, you murdered my son!” But Chimney becomes too cautious, not letting Harry go on any calls or even pick up their coffee orders (“Coffee is the only work experience he has,” Buck points out) and instead having him stay back at the firehouse, all after the probie got to the 118 early on his first day and got to work immediately.

No one wants to talk to Chimney about this, but someone needs to, and who better than Hen? “Everyone’s concerned,” she tells him. It seems like he’s following in the footsteps of his old captain. “Bobby is a tough act to follow,” he points out. But she wasn’t talking about Bobby. She meant Gerard, who, in addition to giving Chimney mustache envy and making him scrub the bathroom, benched both of them and kept them out of the action so long they wondered why they signed up in the first place. Chimney’s not letting Harry be on the team.

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“Do you know what happened the first time Gerard let me on a structure fire? I lost a brother! Last year, we lost a friend! Hen, every time Harry looks at me with those probie puppy dog eyes, I can’t help it. I just see all the ways Bobby’s stepson, Athena’s son, could die on my watch,” he admits. But Hen reminds him that he’s his probie, and so what he has to do is either be his captain, who will show him how to stay alive or cut him loose so he can join another firehouse. “He belongs at the 118,” Chimney argues. And so he has to put him in.

That’s what Chimney does after sitting him down and sharing his own experience as a probie and bringing him on a call. And it’s a good thing he does. Not only does Harry come up with a solution, he also saves Chimney from getting hit by a car when the captain is too focused on trying to find the probie after he loses sight of him. Once back at the firehouse, Chimney officially welcomes him to the 118.

And when Harry heads home, he receives the gift Athena and May (Corinne Massiah) would’ve given him if he hadn’t gone in so early to work his first day: Bobby’s knife. “We wanted you to have a little piece of him to carry with you,” Athena explains. “He would’ve been so proud of you,” May adds. They also have what Bobby would’ve given him if he were there: his own knife, to let him be his own man.

Oh, and a fun guest appearance from Mike Farrell from M*A*S*H as an 87-year-old man whose son worries when he goes missing, only for him to be driving the lawn mower to the airport to pick up his girlfriend he met online — and yes, she does exist. His son was just being too overprotective, but he’s delighted to find out that his dad wasn’t being catfished.

What did you think of this episode? Did you see that ending coming? Let us know in the comments section below.

9-1-1, Thursdays, 8/7c, ABC

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