This article contains mentions of addiction, suicidal ideation, and death.
Additionally, Bobby and Athena Grant (Angela Bassett) were 9-1-1’s central love story, with the couple’s entire relationship unfolding during the events of the first responder drama. Each call that the LAFD and LAPD worked on together immediately took on new depth, due to the married couple being as committed to their jobs as they were to each other. Though the 9-1-1 season 8 finale brought some semblance of closure, Athena and Bobby’s storylines have been largely intertwined since the beginning. Yet, Bobby himself is, ironically, most in need of further development in 9-1-1, even if indirectly and posthumously.
Audiences Are Still Angry About Bobby's Shock Death In 9-1-1 Season 8
Bobby Marked The Procedural's First Main Character Death
When 9-1-1’s evil scientist, Moira Blake (Bridget Regan), set the lab fire that trapped most of the 118 in quarantine during Contagion, it at first seemed like Chimney was the one in danger. The comedic relief character quickly started displaying symptoms of CCHF (Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever) after the lab explosion, and the first episode in the two-part thriller left off on a cliffhanger that promised Chimney’s condition would only worsen. 9-1-1 season 8, episode 15 turns the tables completely by curing Chimney and evacuating the 118, only for Bobby to reveal at the last second that he also contracted CCHF.
CCHF typically takes weeks to fully run its course, but Moira created a super-strain in 9-1-1: Contagion with a mere 90-minute incubation period.
Bobby’s confession frustratingly left no time for action, and the main character died soon after saying one last goodbye to Athena. Initially, Bobby’s death felt purely for the sake of shock value, and many believed it was an elaborate ruse that would be backpedaled on by the end of season 8. Sadly, the fire captain’s fate was sealed at the end of 9-1-1 season 8, episode 18, when Chimney and Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) welcomed their second child and named him Bobby Nash Han, cementing the fallen fire captain as a heroic martyr figure for the procedural.