If Thursday’s episode of 9-1-1 taught us anything, it’s that Athena Grant isn’t safe anywhere. She already has a terrible track record on land, on the sea and in the sky, but now we can apparently add outer space to her list of danger zones. Will this woman never know peace?
The continuation of last week’s Season 9 premiere picked up with Athena and Hen preparing to blast off as part of Tripp Hauser’s PR stunt, an occasion they marked with the darkest toast imaginable. “Here’s to not dying tomorrow,” Hen said, raising her shot glass. “Or, here’s to dying tomorrow,” Athena replied. “Whatever may be!”
If she didn’t immediately regret making that toast, she definitely did by the end of the hour. Joined by three other “everyday heroes,” including Tripp’s Real Housewives-aspiring fiancée Tricia (played by the hilarious June Diane Raphael), Athena and Hen cautiously boarded the Inara, totally unaware that the launch was basically doomed from the start.
Prior to takeoff, Tripp was warned by an executive named Cody (played by Max Carver, not his twin brother Charlie!) that there was a 43% chance of a geomagnetic storm potentially derailing the voyage. But because 43 is less than 50, Tripp gave his team the go-ahead. So it came as no surprise, at least to the viewers, when a collision with a satellite sent the Inara spinning out of control.
Tech bro Parker was able to fix the problem by unplugging the controls and plugging them back in (“We’re trapped in a billion-dollar printer?!”), but he sustained significant injuries in the process, forcing Hen to leap into action.
Through the magic of satellite telephones, Karen and Maddie were able to connect the passengers to Tripp, who walked them through the process of manually configuring the Inara to return to Earth. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the last of their troubles. The vessel caught fire on its way back, and the fire suppression button failed to solve the problem. (Of all the times for that thing to break. It had one job!)
For Athena and Hen’s sakes, we’re not exactly looking forward to next week’s conclusion, but we are curious about this tease we got from Mark Consuelos about what to expect from Tripp in Part 3. When we asked the actor if there’s anything he’d like to say on his villainous character’s behalf, he cautioned TVLine to wait before dealing our final judgment.
“I would say to just watch Episode 3,” Consuelos said. “Let’s just get to Episode 3, and then maybe we can have a definitive opinion about Tripp.”
Could this bumbling, egomaniacal, devilishly handsome billionaire actually save the day in the end? It’s not likely, but hey, stranger things have happened recently. Let’s not forget this is the same guy who was just swallowed by a humpback whale.
So, what else was going down in the 118’s orbit (so to speak) this week? Here’s a quick breakdown of everything that’s worth discussing:
* Harry doesn’t know exactly who he’s mad at, but he’s big mad, and it’s all being targeted at Athena. “She’s pretending to be an astronaut, like Katy Perry or Neil Armstrong or something,” he told May without a hint of irony. Basically, he feels like Michael made a choice to leave the country, Bobby made a choice to sacrifice himself, and now Athena is making a choice to do this space “thing.” He also did a ride-along with the 118 during the chaos, leading us to assume that he’ll eventually start working at the firehouse.
* We knew this premiere would involve whales eating people and first responders going into space — but no one told us there would actual killer robots. Easily the best sequence from this week’s episode involved the 118 doing battle with Tripp’s rogue tech at a local hospital. We’re talking full Star Wars mode, complete with shooting laser beams. The things this show can get away with!
OK, let’s talk: How are you feeling as we head into next week’s conclusion to the three-part premiere? Drop a comment with your full review of Part 2 below.
This story originally appeared on TVLine
