9-1-1 fans, the moment we’ve been waiting for is almost here. Say it with me: bee-nado. Bee-nado! BEE-NADO! Given the absurd premise and campy marketing, this could be one of 9-1-1’s best disasters. ABC’s first-responder show has already given us one bee attack, and it was a real stunner, but this one promises a raising of the stakes that is quintessential 9-1-1. From the beginning, the show has taken the Grey’s Anatomy approach to large-scale disasters, conditioning fans to expect at least one grandiose emergency per season, and over the years has fine-tuned its tone, finding new and increasingly ridiculous ways to make us laugh, cry, and bug our eyes out of their sockets.
Disaster episodes like these are a time-honored TV tradition. Over the years, they’ve become staples of classic soap operas like Dallas, sitcoms like Roseanne, procedurals like Hawaii Five-0, teen shows like One Tree Hill, and prime-time dramas like ER. But what separates a good TV nightmare from a great one? The best disaster episodes all have three things in common: They (1) pile on the visual spectacle while (2) developing characters and (3) delivering a strong emotional gut punch. Depending on the genre, any given installment might lean more into comedy or drama, but by the end, we should all be crying from either heartache or laughter. (Think: Arizona losing her leg after the Grey’s plane crash, a devastating event that had ramifications for seasons to come, or Dorothy catching her ex-husband Stan canoodling with her sister, Gloria, during Golden Girls’s two-part hurricane episode “The Monkey Show.â€)
9-1-1 co-creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Timothy Minear (who also serves as showrunner) are no strangers to gonzo set pieces, so it’s no surprise that their procedural has embraced them as a storytelling vehicle. At this point, 9-1-1 has perfected the formula for epic calamities, and it’s all basically led to this moment. Here’s a rundown of the season-defining disasters that have yielded a perfect storm of ideal bee-nado conditions.
The Airplane Crash
Season 1, Episode 4, “Worst Day Everâ€
It’s the catastrophe that started it all. Although it wasn’t the season premiere, “Worst Day Ever†remains season one’s most memorable episode because it established tropes that resurface in pretty much every 9-1-1 disaster to come — including jumping back and forth through time to give us more context about the civilians our beloved first responders rescue. Episode writer Zachary Reiter knows exactly how to ham up the calm before the storm, warming us up with sentimental moments (like a mother preparing her son for his first date) and frisky foreshadowing (of course there’s a couple getting it on in the bathroom). The pre-emergency patter is one of the show’s best staples.
The emotional beats are strong in this one, too. Bobby (Peter Krause) has an alcoholic relapse after witnessing the carnage, and when his colleagues find him passed out in his home, he breaks down and asks for help — a breakthrough that deepens our understanding of both him and his team. Best of all, Bobby’s future wife, Angela Bassett’s Athena, steps up as a hammer for the people by placing a plane full of passengers under “arrest†to free them from a paranoid airline CEO’s nonsensical orders. We love to see it!
There’s plenty of raw spectacle at play here, even if it pales in comparison to the carnage. (The image of that guy’s seat belt tearing the skin off his stomach? Forever be seared into my brain.) Still, this episode’s real legacy will always be the foundation it laid for many cataclysmic episodes to come.
The Earthquake
Season 2, Episodes 1 (“Under Pressureâ€) and 2 (“7.1â€)
9-1-1’s sophomore season ups the ante by opening with our first multi-episode disaster arc, which becomes the template for almost every premiere to come. As electrifying as it was to watch a plane sink in season one, this tectonic saga feels more cinematic thanks to the two-part format, the eye-popping shots of buildings collapsing, and the sheer scale of the sets our first responders get to play in.
The episodes are also major characterization drivers, introducing Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Maddie as she flees from her abusive husband and hides out with her brother, Buck (Oliver Stark), and embracing big emergencies as a mechanism to work through major relationship beats, like Buck realizing that his “long-distance relationship†with Abby (Connie Britton) is merely foreplay for an eventual breakup and Bobby and Athena finally going public about their romance. Bobby and Athena are almost always Going Through Something when trouble hits, but in this case, Athena still finds the time to stand up for the little guy again by reprimanding a convenience-store owner for price-gouging essential goods. (Any chance she could call up some grocery chains right now about the price of eggs?)
9-1-1 would not be 9-1-1 without some devilish comedy, and the earthquake-heat-wave combo delivers that, too. The scorching weather brings out the worst from L.A.’s civilians, from a road-raging tour-bus guide to a group of YouTubers who seal their friend’s head in a microwave with cement for a stunt. (Yes, they try to stream Bobby saving their friend’s life, and yes, he does immediately throw their phone in a swimming pool.) All in all, this might be 9-1-1’s best two-parter.
The Tsunami
Season 3, Episodes 1 (“Kids Todayâ€), 2 (“Sink or Swimâ€), and 3 (“The Searchersâ€)
Ah, yes — the calamity to end all calamities. One minute, Buck’s enjoying a day at the pier with Eddie’s (Ryan Guzman) son, Christopher (Gavin McHugh), and the next thing you know, they’re thrashing through the water. Much like the earthquake, the tsunami feels epic — from the sight of the wave lurking over an amusement park to the camera bobbing up and down in the water among the debris. We have a soon-to-be-divorced couple trapped on a Ferris wheel, a building full of people dying of carbon-monoxide poisoning, and Athena performing a field amputation with a burgled knife. Yikes!
The dramatic linchpin of this disaster comes when the water recedes back out to sea and separates Buck from Christopher, who has cerebral palsy. So commences the most I’ve cried over a 9-1-1 episode, ever. Buck frantically searches for Christopher, crying out his name in a voice that could only be described as broken. Between the tenderness he shows Christopher when they’re relaxing on the pier and his terrified shrieks as he searches, the tsunami reveals a vulnerability to Buck that we’ve never seen before. He even plays “I Spy†with Christopher to distract him from the traumatizing sight of dead bodies in the water. When he has to tell Eddie that he lost Christopher? UGH!!! Thank God the kid turns up not long after that. So far, the tsunami remains 9-1-1’s best disaster episode, both in terms of shock factor and emotional impact.
The Dam Break and Landslide
Season 4, Episodes 1 (“The New Abnormalâ€) and 2 (“Alone Togetherâ€)
This premiere marked 9-1-1’s return after lockdown, so naturally, the running theme is “fuck this year†(even though it premiered in January of 2021). After a few “microquakes,†the action begins when the Hollywood Reservoir dam breaks, once again flooding the streets. And then come the mudslides. On the “WTF†front, this one delivers. Not only does a bus get smushed into a building and explode, but on top of that, Athena rescues a traumatized agoraphobe after her home slides out from beneath them. Buck and Chimney (Kenneth Choi) search for a crying baby and find a basement full of imprisoned pregnant women (long story), and Bobby and the team rescue a guy who professes his love to his roommate’s girlfriend while sinking into quicksand. Now that’s what I call television!
But it’s not just the wild twists and suspenseful turns that make these episodes great; they also put in the emotional work. It’s Athena’s first day back on the job after a traumatizing attack, and obviously, her plans to ease into things are shot. Meanwhile, her daughter, May (Corinne Massiah), happens to be working her first day as a dispatcher when the nightmare hits. By joining her mother’s world, May begins to understand her a little better, which lays the groundwork for their relationship to continue evolving. Sweet!
The Cyberattack and Blackout
Season 5, Episodes 1 (“Panicâ€), 2 (“Desperate Timesâ€), and 3 (“Desperate Measuresâ€)
While most multipart 9-1-1 emergencies center on natural disasters, the show folds in some man-made terrors as well. Season four ends on a traumatizing sniper shooting, and season five’s two-part premiere follows up with a hacker-induced blackout. Meanwhile, Athena’s archnemesis, serial rapist Jeffrey Hudson (Noah Bean), takes her son Harry (Marcanthonee Reis) hostage. No one suffers more in these episodes than Harry, who gets drywalled into a crawl space by his kidnapper. (Jeffrey wants revenge against Athena for arresting him and shooting off his, erm, manhood.) The suspense goes through the roof when Jeffrey goads Athena into killing him before anyone’s figured out where he hid Harry, but luckily, they find him just in time.
In terms of spectacle, the hacker attack has its moments — like that one woman whose hacked GPS sends her into the canal, and those escaped zoo animals wandering the streets of L.A. But overall, the visuals don’t quite live up to the hype. Instead, the blackout provides a major story beat for Athena, closing out her multi-season cat-and-mouse game with Jeffrey and giving all of us the closure we needed to move on. There’s also that tear-jerking moment when May marshals a neighborhood full of people to gather their extension cords to recharge and restart a young boy’s ventilator. Just another day on the job.
The Bridge Collapse
Season 6, Episode 18 (“Pay It Forwardâ€)
This should have been a two-parter, but I’ll forgive the writers for the missed opportunity. Season six skips the big premiere event and instead backloads its disaster, which places half of the 118 in serious danger. Personally, I wish that one of our main characters had been a little more imperiled going into the following episode, because the stakes would feel higher. That said, watching a freshly engaged Chimney almost bleed out is pretty stressful.
Our first responders are dealing with a car accident on the bridge when an exhausted semitruck driver hits one of the pillars, sending the whole thing crashing down. The collapse leaves Hen (Aisha Hinds) dizzy and puking, Chimney impaled in the ambulance, and Bobby trapped in the rubble. Oh — and Eddie has some fractured ribs, which, given the circumstances, actually feels pretty lucky. The opening on this one is strong as hell, as we watch all of the moving parts behind this disaster clicking into place until the bridge finally crumbles. Still, pretty much everyone’s okay well before the episode wraps, which makes the whole thing feel anticlimactic. Buck even has time to deliver a whole baby by the end — his friends’ baby, whom he helped conceive. Although it’s pretty solid as a one-off entry, this one pales in comparison to the bigger catastrophes we’ve seen. But, hey — every show has the right to at least one dud!
The Honeymoon Cruise From Hell
Season 7, Episodes 1 (“Abandon Shipsâ€), 2 (“Rock the Boatâ€), and 3 (“Capsizedâ€)
[Stefon voice] These … episodes … have … everything.
From the minute we see Bobby and Athena approaching the cruise ship at the end of season six, we know they’re in for a bad time. I mean, on what planet would 9-1-1 allow its main characters to enjoy a normal belated honeymoon? This episode feels like a return to form that’s nearly on par with the tsunami; all of the key elements are there.
Spectacle? Check. We’ve got the ominous claustrophobia of a cruise ship, a mutiny by pirates, several explosions, and eventually, the whole cruise ship capsizes with one unfortunate passenger attached to the floor, which becomes the ceiling. (It’s a long story.) Bobby rescues the passenger with a rudimentary pulley system, which feels both perilous and ingenious.
Character progression? Big check. While Athena goes into the trip worried that she and Bobby will have nothing to talk about when they’re not navigating chaos, nearly drowning together while trying to save the ship allows her to let go of the anxiety and realize that she and Bobby really are meant for each other. Back on dry land, Hen is also feeling pissed at her colleagues when they fail to stand up for her during an internal investigation. Thankfully, they all make nice just in time to fly into a hurricane (yep, a hurricane) to save Bobby and Athena.
And finally, this one also sticks the landing when it comes to emotional impact. It’s a relief to see the discord at the station resolved and equally gratifying to watch Athena’s fear give way to real emotional vulnerability. This is the kind of season opener we deserve. And with any luck, “bee-nado†will leave us buzzing in exactly the same way.