Peter Krause has often compared his 9-1-1 character Bobby Nash to an invincible animated character.
“I live in this world where the language of the show is this comic book about first responders come to life and they live through these most gruesome accidents,” the actor told Entertainment Weekly in 2024 ahead of the season 7 finale, which saw Bobby in a coma.
“A fire engine falling on Buck’s lower body, a rebar going all the way through Chimney’s head, Eddie being shot. It is just sort of been the language of the show. We’re like Wile E. Coyote getting blown up by TNT and then bouncing away with a limp and some scratches and bruises,” he continued.
But there’s no bouncing away from this one. Read our recap of the final moments of 9-1-1 season 8, episode 15, “Lab Rats,” below. You can also read our postmortem interview with showrunner Tim Minear.
Bobby (Peter Krause) on ‘9-1-1’. ABC
Tonight’s episode of the ABC first responder drama was Bobby’s final rescue.
Heading into tonight’s conclusion of 9-1-1‘s two-part contagion event, Chimney (Kenneth Choi) was the most likely series regular to meet their end, given that he was rapidly progressing through fatal symptoms after being exposed to a mutated version of CCHF, or Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever.
Hen (Aisha Hinds) was also a candidate, given that Bobby had to perform surgery on her in last week’s episode after she sustained injuries from the laboratory explosion.
Then there was Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody), who momentarily ran out of oxygen until Bobby came up with a creative fix.
By the end of tonight’s episode, Bobby had saved all three of his fellow 118 firefighters — but using the one antidote on Chimney meant there wasn’t a dose for the fire captain to use when he reveals to Buck (Oliver Stark) that he is not leaving the laboratory.
“You’re gonna be okay, Buck,” Bobby tells his firefighter, who has looked up to his captain as a father figure since the start of the series. Even in his final moments, Bobby was putting his team first. “Remember that. They’re gonna need you. I love you, kid.”
At first it is unclear why Bobby has taken off his mask in the presence of the virus and locked himself in the contaminated room, perhaps leaving some viewers to wonder if this is his death wish finally come to pass after he revealed to Chimney in season 1 that he only planned to live long enough to rescue as many people as were killed in the fire he accidentally started prior to moving to Los Angeles.
But when Buck calls Athena (Angela Bassett) in to say goodbye, Bobby reveals there was a hole in the air supply line of his breathing apparatus. “It probably happened during the explosion,” he tells his wife.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Athena asks. There was only one dose, he tells her.
Athena pleads with Buck to get a medical team, but Bobby insists they not risk exposing anyone else to the virus. “And I need you to leave,” he adds in his instructions to Buck, “I want some time alone with my wife.”
Buck (Oliver Stark) mourns Bobby (Peter Krause) on ‘9-1-1’. ABC/Youtube
“I started feeling it hours ago,” Bobby explains. “I’m sorry. This isn’t how I wanted to leave you.”
“You’re not leaving me, I won’t let you,” Athena replies.
“You need to listen to me please,” Bobby continues. “I’m not choosing to leave you. I chose to save my team because it was the right thing to do. It was never because I wanted to go. I don’t want to go. if I could choose I would stay with you always.”
“Then stay,” pleads Athena. “We need more time.”
“I’m sorry,” he responds. “We don’t have any more time…mine was always borrowed. L.A. was supposed to be my penance not my home, then you said yes to a dinner invitation and I started to live again.”
Athena continues to plead, and all Bobby can say through coughs is that he loves her.
“Athena, you have to go. You can’t be here for this next part,” he finally concludes.
“I’m here for all the parts that we have left,” she says through tears as they touch their hand to their sides of the glass before Bobby walks away into the room and gets down on his knees to pray, eventually collapsing onto the table.
Bobby (Peter Krause) in happier times on ‘9-1-1’. Disney/Christopher Willard
“He knew Maddie,” Chimney says through tears on the phone with his wife (played by Jennifer Love Hewitt) outside the lab. “When he saved my life, he knew.”
As the 118 mourns outside, the show makes it devastatingly clear there is no bouncing away, with footage of Bobby’s body being taken out of the lab in a body bag before the camera rests on a shot of his helmet on the ground.
9-1-1 continues with three more season 8 episodes and will return for season 9.
