Warning: This post contains spoilers for Season 8, Episode 15, of “9-1-1.”
“9-1-1” fans aren’t happy after the show killed off Captain Bobby Nash, one of its beloved characters, in the latest episode.
Bobby, played by Peter Krause, died in Season 8, Episode 15, of the series after he hid that he contracted Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, also known as CCHF, and decided to give the only antidote to Chimney (Kenneth Choi) instead of himself.
The decision to kill off one of the show’s central characters quickly resulted in strong reactions online. On X, fans said they weren’t OK after seeing what happened to Bobby.
“This broke my heart im like damn they are really killing a major character off,” one person wrote.
Another said, “IM ABSOLUTELY SOBBING OVER BOBBY RNNNNN.”
A third shared a clip of Buck (Oliver Stark), who has a close relationship with Bobby, crying over the captain’s death, and said, “I hate this show.”
“They will be paying for my therapy bills,” another wrote.
“No we are not gonna be okay… 😭😭,” someone else added.
Though Bobby’s death was surprising to fans, “9-1-1” fans were prepared for the worst going into last night’s episode as Bobby and two other characters were on the brink of death like never before. In addition to Chimney, Hen (Aisha Hinds) was also suffering from a collapsed lung after the previous episode’s lab explosion.
The shocking death also came weeks after speculation that a lead character might die following photos of what appeared to be a “9-1-1” funeral scene that the show was filming.
Why did Peter Krause leave ‘9-1-1’?
Following the dramatic episode, Variety published a statement from Krause in which he spoke about his character’s death and the show’s decision to kill him off in Season Eight.
“I’ve heard that many fans are upset by this loss and they have a right to be. It is a loss,” he said in the statement to the outlet.
“That said, it was more than a bold creative choice on a bold show,” his statement continued. “Bobby Nash was written in sacrifice and he was built for this. First responders risk their lives on the job so that others can see another day. His story arc honors them.”
In Krause’s statement on his exit from the show, the actor also thanked his “9-1-1” family, writing that he’d “miss” them all.
“All the writers who keep pulling rabbits out of hats. All the directors tasked with the same,” he wrote in part before sharing a sweet message to his “partner, Angela Bassett.”
“Her strength and her sweetness, and us holding hands. We parted ways too soon. Much love,” he added.
Why did they kill off Bobby on ‘9-1-1’?
“9-1-1” showrunner Tim Minear also shared insight on the decision to kill off Bobby, telling Variety that the outcome needed to be “unambiguous.”
“I had to convince everybody about this,” Minear said. “The network was not like, ‘Yeah, get rid of him, it’ll save us money.’ It was nothing like that. I had to pitch this at the highest levels and just walk through the whole story and try to infect them — funny choice of words, given the storyline — because, as I pitched it, you could understand, as a writer, how suddenly the whole world felt more alive. It felt more real because this thing had happened.”
Minear also shared why it had to be Bobby who died in the dramatic episode.
“Well, I think it needed to be Bobby for a lot of reasons,” he told Variety. “The first reason is that it made sense. It didn’t feel arbitrary, because if you track the tragic arc of his character, of where he started, and how he came to L.A. looking for atonement, it just makes a kind of tragic sense for his character in a way it wouldn’t for another character.”
The showrunner also noted that the show had the intent to leave the season with a bang.
“I just didn’t want to go small,” he said. “Not that any of the characters are small, but Bobby’s death affects every single character’s story in a way that really no other character death would.”
Will Peter Krause return to ‘9-1-1’ ?
Though the finality of Bobby’s death appears to be certain, Minear tells Variety that Peter Krause is still likely to appear on a future episode.
“Well, I will say that Episode 15 is not Peter Krause’s final appearance this season,” he teased without sharing details.
In a March interview with People, Angela Bassett, who plays Bobby’s wife, Athena, talked about her relationship with Krause on the show.
When asked if she could envision a world where their characters don’t exist, she said, “Absolutely not. It would be so different.”
“I don’t even know what the show would be like without them together. It’s hard to imagine,” she added.
