Note: This story contains spoilers from the “9-1-1” Season 8 premiere.
“9-1-1” has cultivated a reputation for kicking off seasons with some impressive disasters. There was Season 2’s earthquake, Season 5’s LA blackout and Season 7’s sinking cruise ship. And who could ever forget the three-episode tsunami that opened Season 3? But Season 8’s Bee-nado may just fly to the top of this wild list.
“I was talking to Ryan Murphy, and he really loved the whole riff on ‘The Poseidon Adventure’ last season. He was like, ‘What are some other great ’70s disaster movies?’ And I’m like, ‘”The Swarm,”‘ which is maybe the worst one ever,” series showrunner co-creator and executive producer Tim Minear told TheWrap.
Minear does not recommend “anyone” sit down and watch Irwin Allen’s box office bomb about a swarm of killer bees that are on the verge of invading Texas. “I threw that out there, and he was like, ‘Yeah, do that.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, crap. OK.’”
As with nearly every emergency depicted in “9-1-1,” the Bee-nado is rooted in some reality. Earlier this year, a tractor trailer carrying 15 million bees crashed on I-95 in Maine. Similarly, in 2023 alone 5 million bees fell off a truck in Canada and a truck in Florida transporting 1 million bees was in an accident. But the real trick to Bee-nado was combining this buzzy plot with a story that felt like “9-1-1.” That’s where Athena (Angela Bassett) came into play.
Though most of the runtime for the aptly titled “Buzzkill” is devoted to emergency insect response, that’s the B-plot for Season 8’s opener. The A-plot revolves around Athena escorting the inmate who killed her fiancé to another prison. Initially, she fights the assignment. But the more time she spends with Dennis Jenkins (Glenn Plummer), the more she begins to believe his claims that someone is out to kill him before he can testify in another case. Athena’s tense and emotional story comes to a head at the end of “Buzzkill,” which sees both Athena and Dennis in a plane crash that was caused by rampant bees.
“I knew I couldn’t do a swarm of bees for two or three episodes, so I literally have the bee plot collide with the Athena story by the end, which is also what I’ve done over the years,” Minear said. “I’ll start with a premiere episode that gets everybody into the water. You get to see where everybody is in their personal lives. And then by the end of the first hour, something bigger happens that then takes you off into the next couple of episodes. We’re not doing anything different.”
Minear praised Bassett for being “game for anything.” That’s a big compliment considering last season involved her character on the verge of drowning while on her honeymoon, and this one starts with Athena being thrown around midair.
“Last year when we were doing ‘Poseidon,’ she was down there in that water and throwing herself against the wall. She was practically doing her own stunts. So she was into [the plane scene],” Minear said. “By the way, when I worked with her on ‘American Horror Story,’ I would give her much stranger things.”
The executive producer credited Bassett as “a lot of the reason” “9-1-1” has seen so much success. “Angela brings her A-game every single time, and she grounds the insanity in something emotionally true. Maybe that’s why we’ve been on as long as we have,” Minear said.
There’s another weightier story at the center of “Buzzkill”: Station 118’s adjustment to its new captain, Vincent Gerrard (Brian Thompson). Season 7 ended with Bobby (Peter Krause) accidentally resigning from the force as he recovered from his house fire and other traumatic events. Heading into this new season, Minear knew that the tension between Captain Gerrard and the rest of the team would be a major plot point.
“Obviously, Gerrard’s an asshole. We all know that, we’ve seen him before,” Minear said. “The question is how do you make it specific?”
Eventually, the team realized that Hen (Aisha Hinds) and Chimney (Kenneth Choi) probably wouldn’t have too much of a problem working with Captain Gerrard since they had already worked with him before. Similarly, Eddie’s (Ryan Guzman) military background meant he knew how to deal with tougher leaders.
“Finally, the answer was this should be about Buck [Oliver Stark] because he’s the one who really has never known a different captain than Bobby,” Minear said. “Bobby is practically his surrogate dad. So it just felt like the most conflict would come between Gerard and Buck, and it will continue. It becomes quite hilarious.”
As for Bobby, he spends the first part of Season 8 in a role “9-1-1” is very familiar with: consulting on a Hollywood set. “We have our professional firefighter consultant, Mike Bowman, who we lovingly refer to as Hollywood Mike. [Bobby’s storyline] was based a little bit on that, although the way Bobby reacts to being on set is very different than the way Mike reacts,” Minear said. “Mike is very enthusiastic. Bobby is a little bit more, ‘This is a ridiculous post.’”
“9-1-1” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and streams the next day on Hulu.
