When 9-1-1 controversially killed off its fire captain, Peter Krause’s Bobby Nash, last season, it begged the question — who would lead the team going forward? Who would fill Bobby’s shoes?
Well, six episodes into the ninth season, we finally have our answer — and it’s the same person who’s been doing the job this whole time (albeit reluctantly). In 9-1-1’s “Family History,” the most recent episode of ABC’s procedural drama, Howard “Chimney” Han (Kenneth Choi) finally becomes the official captain of Station 118 after serving as its interim captain for the past seven months in the show’s timeline.
This momentous occasion is marked with an inauguration ceremony for Chimney at the end of the episode, a celebration that serves as a lovely bookend to the firehouse dedication ceremony that opened the season in Episode 1, “Eat the Rich,” to honour the 118’s fallen leader.
Chimney, as the new 9-1-1 captain, shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who watched the Season 8 finale, “Seismic Shifts,” but what’s so special about the conclusion to this particular arc is that it’s not the outcome Chimney himself was ever striving for. Heading into the finale episode, Chimney couldn’t be further from wanting to be captain. Still very much grappling with the grief and guilt of Bobby having died for him (Bobby chose to sacrifice himself for Chimney in Episode 15, “Lab Rats”), Chimney is in no way angling to step into his fallen friend’s shoes.
Certainly not helping matters is his currently strained relationship with Bobby’s widow, Sergeant Athena Grant, who’s been struggling to be around Chimney after her husband’s aforementioned sacrifice. However, as the show’s first responders work together — including Chimney and Athena — to save the victims of a condo collapse, Chimney’s suitability for the captaincy comes to light. In the emergency’s aftermath, Athena even tells him how it drove Bobby crazy that Chimney never gave himself enough credit, but that he knew Chimney was a “smart, talented, capable paramedic” and “a great leader.” This admittance from Athena is the olive branch she and Chimney needed after the last three episodes, and Chimney later returns the gesture by deciding to name his unborn son after Bobby.
In this same episode, Chimney also effectively rallies his presently fractured team with a stirring speech back at the firehouse. In response to previously stated plans from multiple firefighters to leave the firehouse after Bobby’s death, he tells the team: “You’re not getting on any red-eye… And nobody is transferring out, and nobody is staying in Texas. This is our firehouse. This is the 118. And it’s not just a number. It’s us. And you’re right, Buck. Things are never gonna be the same again because Cap is gone. But leaving won’t change that. It won’t make you feel any less sad. It just means that you’ll be sad all alone.”
He continues his unintentionally motivational speech, acknowledging the mindset Bobby always held as their captain. “Bobby died so that I could live, and it has screwed me up in ways that I cannot fully express. But the truth is…he would’ve done that for any one of us. You see, he knew that just coming into work every day, there was a chance that one or more of us would not make it home. And his job above everything else was to make sure that we did. And we are all standing here right now because of him. This team, we are his legacy. So we can miss him, and we can mourn him. We can even curse his name, but we are not going to disrespect him by throwing away what he built right here.”
By the end of the speech — “So you hang up your turnouts, you hit the showers, you go home, and you get some rest, ’cause we are all gonna see each other on our next shift, right here, together. Understood?” — It’s clear to both the firefighters standing in the station and the viewers watching at home that Chimney is the man for the job.
Even if he doesn’t realize it yet.
When 9-1-1 returns the next season with “Eat the Rich,” Chimney is interim captain, and it’s implied that he took on the role somewhat begrudgingly and also out of necessity (it’s stated more than once how no one wants an “outsider” leading the team). Across the first four episodes of Season 9, during which two characters, including Athena, wind up stuck in space (yes, you read that right!), we see glimmers of the growing pains Chimney encounters while in this “temporary” leadership position.
But we also see his successes. In “Eat the Rich,” for example, he produces an inventive solution to save a billionaire from the mouth of a humpback whale, and in the third episode, “The Sky Is Falling,” he shoulders the responsibility — and the potential blame — of performing a risky field amputation as a last resort for an unconscious patient otherwise headed for organ failure.
Throughout this first batch of Season 9 episodes, despite competently performing the job and having the support of his teammates — “You know everybody’s really glad that you’re in charge, right?” fellow firefighter Eddie Diaz reassures him at one point — Chimney remains plagued with doubts and insecurities on top of his longstanding Bobby-related guilt and grief.
“I spend half the day trying to convince myself that I can actually do this, and the other half waiting for [the fire chief] to finally tell me he’s found a real captain to take over,” Chimney confesses to Eddie in “Eat the Rich.” In “The Sky Is Falling,” he initially struggles to decide whether or not to amputate the victim’s trapped leg. “I don’t like the call,” he tells Eddie, who first suggested the plan in response to the increasingly dire situation. “Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not the right one,” Eddie reminds him.
But Chimney is still extremely reluctant. “No. No no no no no. I keep thinking what would Bobby do right now. For all the things you just listed, he would try to save that leg.” It’s only when Eddie acknowledges that he’s open to other options but just doesn’t see any in the current crisis that Chimney acquiesces.
When Eddie offers to be the one to perform the amputation (he’s the only team member with combat medic experience), Chimney declines. His rationale for making himself liable for whatever might happen with the drastic but necessary procedure? “I’ve been waiting months for this interim captain thing to come to an end. I think this will finally do it.” What his bitterly ironic tone betrays, though, is that this decision is a prominent example of precisely why he’s an exceptional candidate for the captaincy. He listens to his team, he protects them, and when it comes down to it, he ultimately does make the right, if inordinately difficult, calls when he needs to in order to save lives.
Chimney’s relationship to the potential captaincy comes to a head a couple of weeks later, with “Family History.” The episode opens with Chimney overlooking the finalists for official captain of the 118. We’re told he’s already declined the offer to make his interim position permanent, and now there are “three strangers who don’t really compare to Bobby” in the running to take the job.
His wife, 9-1-1 dispatcher Maddie, rightfully calls him out for not considering himself among the candidates. “Maddie, it can’t be me,” he reminds her. “Why not?” she counters. “[The fire chief] offered you the position. You’ve been doing it for months, and pretty successfully from what I can tell.” Chimney’s answer? “I already told him that I didn’t want it.” But Maddie sees right through her husband. “Aha. But now you do. Call him and tell him that you changed your mind.” But Chimney’s not sure he’s changed his mind, or he just doesn’t want an outsider in the role (a sentiment the team has shared since the start of the season).
He’s also worried his teammates — all of whom are more or less family to him — will resent him for thinking he can take Bobby’s place. “Hey, no one can take Bobby’s place,” Maddie points out. “But maybe you’ve earned your own place.”
And she’s right, of course.
Thankfully, by the end of the episode, we discover that Chimney has finally come to this realization and has decided to officially accept the job. As mentioned above, 9-1-1’s “Family History” concludes with his swearing-in ceremony. After the ceremony, Chimney — Captain Han himself — ventures up to the firehouse’s loft in search of his teammates. He’s greeted by the four of them — Eddie, Hen, Buck, and Ravi — gathered together and, it turns out, eagerly awaiting his arrival. The team has a surprise for their new captain.
“You took an oath. You get a prize,” Eddie tells him, handing over a gift-wrapped box. Given their multiple interactions this season related to Chimney’s reluctance to be captain, it’s especially meaningful that Eddie is the one who presents Chimney with the gift in this moment.
Chimney jokes, “A coffee mug? A rubber ax? Please tell me nothing’s gonna pop out at me,” before opening the gift, an expensive-looking Oris wristwatch (priced at a cool $5,750.00 USD, if fandom research is anything to go by). Chimney’s genuinely at a loss for words. “I think we made him speechless,” Ravi notes to the group. “Wait till he sees the rest,” Buck promises, while Hen encourages Chimney to “read the back.”
Chimney obliges, flipping the watch over to reveal an engraved sentiment: “The 118. It’s not just a number. It’s us.” Sound familiar? This poignant choice of inscription underscores just how internal Chimney’s struggle with the captaincy has been all season, and, notably, just how significant it is that he’s finally reached this point of acceptance and self-confidence.
When Chimney, all choked up, tells his team, “I promise I won’t let you guys down, okay?”, they already know he won’t. They’ve never doubted him. As the audience, we’ve never doubted him, either. And now, with a permanent reminder of his own unintentionally inspiring words on his wrist, we can trust that Chimney has finally stopped doubting himself, too.
It’s about damn time!
Now streaming on Hulu: What are your thoughts on Chimney becoming the new captain in 9-1-1’s “Family History?” Let us know in the comments below.
First Featured Image Credit: (Disney/Christopher Willard)