TL;DR: 9-1-1 Season 9, Episode 5 is a frustrating, repetitive misfire that trades emotional nuance for cheap heartbreak. Eddie deserved better than another round of grief therapy disguised as character growth, and the show’s once-fiery spirit feels dimmed under the weight of endless mourning.
9-1-1 Season 9
I hate to say it, but 9-1-1 just hit the emergency call button on its own storytelling. After last week’s electric, emotionally charged episode, I went into “Día de los Muertos” ready to ugly-cry, cheer, and maybe tweet about Ryan Guzman’s arms in HD. Instead, I spent most of the episode sighing into my popcorn as the show threw away one of its most promising character arcs — Eddie Diaz’s — for yet another round of recycled grief and narrative déjà vu.
This isn’t just a misfire. It’s a genuine “what are we doing here?” moment for a show that used to balance chaos, heart, and humor better than anyone else on network TV.
Let’s start with the obvious: 9-1-1 has been stuck in a grief loop ever since Bobby’s death. I get it — Bobby Nash was the moral core of the show, a literal saint with turnout gear and the world’s most comforting dad voice. Of course his loss should echo through every character. But five episodes into the season, every personal storyline has turned into an endless eulogy. The result? Emotional fatigue.
This week’s episode tries to fuse two holidays — Halloween and Día de Muertos — into one spiritual crossover event, but tonally it’s like mixing pumpkin spice with tequila. You can feel the writers straining to balance “spooky” and “sentimental,” and neither lands.
Eddie, our beloved stoic firefighter with the world’s most complicated inner life, finally gets an episode that’s supposed to be about him. He’s quietly rediscovering his faith, tentatively reconnecting with Catholicism after years of doubt. It’s a rich setup — faith, trauma, identity, family — the kind of storyline that could have deepened his character beyond the tragic single-dad archetype.
And then the show kills his Abuela.
Cue the sound of me throwing my remote.
Here’s the thing: Isabel’s death isn’t just unnecessary — it’s hollow. She was the emotional anchor in Eddie’s storyline, someone who could have guided him toward joy, not more trauma. The scene before her death is actually perfect: Eddie confesses that he’s never really felt God’s presence, and she tells him he’s been looking for love in the wrong places. That’s such a profound, open-ended line — one that could easily have led to an exploration of Eddie’s spirituality, or even his sexuality, both of which the show has flirted with but never truly addressed.
But instead of letting that breathe, the writers hit the big red “kill” button because, apparently, nobody on 9-1-1 is allowed to be happy for more than a scene.
It’s frustrating because the show used to understand balance. Remember when tragedy and triumph used to coexist in the same episode? When the emergencies mirrored the characters’ internal struggles in creative ways instead of blunt metaphors? “Día de los Muertos” could have been that — Eddie searching for meaning among the living while surrounded by ghosts of his past. Instead, it’s just another trip down the grief rabbit hole, complete with a forced prayer scene that feels more like an emotional checkbox than a character revelation.
While Eddie’s storyline crashes and burns, everyone else is stuck in variations of the same old trauma stew. Buck is still trying to process Bobby’s death by channeling his grief into baking — specifically, by trying to perfect Bobby’s snickerdoodle recipe. It’s a decent metaphor (grief is messy, recipes are order), but then the show undercuts it with a twist so bizarre it veers into parody: Buck thinks Bobby’s ghost is helping him bake. Spoiler: it’s not.
Turns out the “ghost” is just a homeless guy who’s been squatting in his house. There’s a moment of grace here — Buck notices the man’s AA chip and decides not to press charges — but it’s a rehash of every “Buck learns empathy” episode we’ve already seen. It’s sincere, but redundant.
Then there’s Athena and Harry. He’s suddenly obsessed with becoming a firefighter (because apparently grief is contagious), and she’s understandably wary. There’s a brief Halloween detour where Harry dresses up in Bobby’s old turnout gear, which goes over about as well as you’d expect. The scene should have been emotionally devastating — a son trying to fill the shoes of the man who raised him — but it resolves in a generic “I’m proud of you” conversation that barely touches the raw emotional material underneath.
This is the recurring problem: every subplot in 9-1-1 Season 9 feels like an echo of the same note. Grieve, reflect, hug, move on — until next week, when we’ll do it again.
The weirdest part about “Día de los Muertos” is how disjointed it feels. There are multiple storylines — Eddie’s faith crisis, Buck’s ghost baker, Athena’s costume drama — and none of them talk to each other thematically. They all circle around Bobby’s absence like satellites around a dead planet.
When Eddie sets up his offrenda at the end — photos of Bobby, Shannon, and Isabel — it should have been a transcendent moment. Instead, it’s a sad montage that feels like the writers are just arranging losses like collectible cards. Even the show’s own rules are ignored; traditionally, you wait a year to add someone to the altar, but apparently narrative pacing is more important than cultural accuracy.
What’s worse is how it all sidelines Eddie. For an episode supposedly centered on him, he spends most of it reacting to events rather than driving them. His arc — rediscovering faith and love through reflection and connection — is hijacked for cheap emotional shock. Killing Isabel doesn’t deepen him; it resets him. Again.
Look, I love 9-1-1. I’ve defended its melodramatic plot twists, its wild rescues, its occasional soap-level chaos. It’s a show that thrives on big feelings and bigger spectacle. But the best episodes always had one thing anchoring them: heart. When the 118 saved lives, they also saved themselves.
“Día de los Muertos” forgets that balance. It confuses trauma with depth, mistaking sadness for storytelling. Eddie deserved an episode about healing — not another funeral.
If this show wants to survive its mid-season slump, it needs to stop reanimating Bobby’s ghost and start letting these characters live.
