9-1-1 Season 7 Ending Explained: Did Bobby Die?

This article contains spoilers for 9-1-1 season 7 episode 10.

ABC’s 9-1-1 is no stranger to gripping season finales, and the season 7 ender is no different. 

Captain Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) and his wife, Sergeant Athena Grant (Angela Bassett), have been at the center of a lot of this season’s high-stakes drama. Season 7 opens with them on a disastrous honeymoon cruise that featured pirates and explosions, and the season finale picks up where the last episode left off, with a fearless Bobby rescuing Athena from their burning home before he collapsing from cardiac arrest. The pair just can’t catch a break. 

Since last week’s episode ended, fans have only wanted to know the answer to one question: Does the beloved Captain Bobby Nash live to see another season? Let’s break it all down.

Does Bobby Die? 

This week’s episode puts viewers through the wringer before finally giving an update on the fate of Captain Nash. They even go so far as to put Athena rushing through the hospital in slow motion. But the good news is that 9-1-1 decided that season 7 was not the time to kill off a main character despite co-creator and showrunner Tim Minear hinting at it.

It was touch and go for a while on whether Bobby would make it, especially as the first few moments of the show saw the doctor reminding Athena that not only was Bobby down for 14 minutes, but he also had an advanced directive that suggested he did not want to be in a coma for any prolonged amount of time. 

Amir Casey (Malcom-Jamal Warner) was Athena’s suspect for the fire because he had reason to want to hurt Bobby and because he knew the layout of their home. But it turned out that he actually had nothing to do with it. In fact, the true culprits had links to the cartel and were out to get Bobby and Amir. Once again, it was Athena who contributed to getting the culprits arrested.

Does Christopher Forgive Eddie?

When the season started, who would’ve thought that Eddie Díaz (Ryan Guzman) would embark on an emotional affair with Kim (Devin Kelley), who looks incredibly like his deceased wife and Christopher’s mom, Shannon (also Devin Kelley)? 

Despite Eddie trying to keep Kim’s resemblance to Shannon somewhat under wraps, it starts unraveling in the season’s penultimate episode when she finally meets Buck (Oliver Stark). Eddie decides to come clean about the doppelganger situation to Shannon and, in the biggest twist of them all, Kim shows up at Eddie’s house in a Shannon wig – as if things couldn’t get creepier. Well, actually, things do get worse because Kim becoming Shannon helping Eddie sort out some of his unresolved feelings towards her death creates a much bigger problem. When Marisol (Edy Ganem) and Christopher (Gavin McHugh) return home to see the hot mess of a situation, Christopher mistakes Kim for his deceased mom.

While the season finale gives no real clarity as to whether or not Marisol has broken up with Eddie for good (I mean, who could blame her), it does provide clarity to how Eddie’s actions with Kim have broken his relationship with his son who for the majority of Eddie’s time on the show he’s had a great relationship with. For most of the finale, Eddie struggles with the fact that Christopher has locked himself in his room and effectively shut him out. Things only get worse when his parents arrive after a distressing call from Christopher, and they tell him that Christopher has asked to move to Texas with them. 

After some persuading, Eddie finally agrees to let Christopher go. Christopher’s departure is a heartbreaking scene to watch as Christopher can barely look at his father in the face of his betrayal. It is clear that it’s going to be a long road for Eddie to repair his relationship with his son, but hopefully, this isn’t the last time viewers get to see Christopher on the show because not only are his scenes with Eddie a delight to watch, but Christopher and Buck’s scenes have also made for some of the show’s best moments.

Do Hen and Karen Get Mara back? 

As if Bobby being in the hospital wasn’t bad enough for Hen (Aisha Hinds) to contend with, there’s the fact that in the last episode, Hen and Karen (Tracie Thoms) were blocked from adopting Mara and, worse, lost custody of her. 

When we first see Hen in this episode, she’s sneaking into the group home to see how Mara is doing. Mara, of course, has no idea that Olivia Ortiz, a councilor whose son died from a brain injury under Hen’s watch, is the reason she’s in the group home and so feels abandoned by the Wilsons.  

By the end of the episode, Hen and Karen are no closer to officially becoming Mara’s parents, but Mara does move closer to them as Chimney (Albert Kim) and Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) are approved to look after Mara while they figure out how to reunite the family. Let’s hope the Wilsons get their happy family soon because this is the second time Hen and Karen have got close to adopting, only for it to fall through. 

An Old Face Returns

That wasn’t the end of the drama for the 118, though. The season 7 finale ends with the firefighters finding out that Bobby had resigned from his job before his house fire, and they are now under new leadership fronted by the truly awful Vincent Gerard (Brian Thompson), who fans may remember was the old leader of the firehouse before Bobby took over. Hopefully, season 8 opens with the 188 figuring out a way to reinstate Bobby as captain because if not, the firefighters are in for a rough ride.