It’s going to take a lot of getting used to for audiences to clock into ABC on Thursday nights and not see Peter Krause’s Bobby Nash on 9-1-1. Last week, in the second part of a two-episode thriller, the beloved captain bid adieu to his co-workers, choosing to lay down his life in order to save the lives of countless others. The actor has been with the procedural since its very first season, making him not only a staple to fans, but an integral part of the story.
As we now prepare to move forward without the character, some are finding it difficult to imagine the 9-1-1 universe without its steady heartbeat. Luckily, showrunner Tim Minear is here to tell viewers that they won’t need to say goodbye — at least not quite yet. To make things incredibly clear, Bobby is for sure, without a doubt, certifiably dead, but that doesn’t mean audiences have seen the last of him, with Minear telling TV Insider that last week’s devastating episode, “Lab Rats,” wasn’t “even his last appearance this season.”
Although he wouldn’t go much further with specific details, Minear leaned into the interviewer’s question surrounding the possibility of Bobby popping up in flashbacks or dreams, sharing,
“You’re going to see him before the end of the season, that you’re going to see him in some of those ways that you have enumerated. I don’t want to mislead anyone. He’s dead.”
Peter Krause’s Final Goodbye
Though the decision to kill off Bobby fell on the shoulders of Minear, it didn’t come without plenty of feedback from the person who knew Bobby Nash the best — Peter Krause. According to the showrunner, one of the most powerful scenes in the last episode was the actor’s idea.
“It was Peter’s idea to turn away from Athena and go to that table and kind of get into a prayerful posture. That was Peter. That was all Peter. So I just thought that was a really lovely choice on his part. And it just kept things kind of elliptical and kind of non-linear because what you’re really watching in those last whatever, two minutes, probably would’ve taken place over some hours.”
Minear also made it a point to explain how Bobby’s death was crafted because, even though he suffered from a deadly virus, the team didn’t want to go down the “ghoulish, body horror, horror movie” route. Instead, they sent him off as a hero, allowing his legacy to continue to drive the 118 to do their very best in the future.
