With Peter Krause getting killed off as Bobby on 9-1-1, is the show already planning a replacement?
“I’m not solving that problem right away for the rest of this season,” executive producer Tim Minear told TV Insider after Bobby’s onscreen death in the Thursday, April 17, episode. “There is an interim captain there who is not going to be the captain going forward, but the last three episodes are not about who’s in Bobby’s chair. The last three episodes are about that chair is empty.”
Minear, 61, noted in a separate interview with Variety that Thursday’s shocking conclusion to the two-part “Contagion” special “is not Peter Krause’s final appearance this season.”
“I still think people grip their seats and are excited when Athena lands a plane on the freeway or a ship capsizes — but after eight years, it just felt like, if we have any hope of creating stories going forward that have actual stakes, then someone’s got to die,” he explained about why it “made sense” Bobby to be killed off. “If you track the tragic arc of his character, of where he started, and how he came to L.A. looking for atonement, it just makes a kind of tragic sense for his character in a way it wouldn’t for another character.”
Bobby’s death on 9-1-1 came out of nowhere — but why was the decision to kill off Peter Krause‘s character so controversial? 9-1-1, which premiered in 2018, introduced Us to the professional and personal lives of Los Angeles first responders. Krause was one of the major players in the role of Bobby, a.k.a. the LAFD […]
Minear concluded: “But also, I just didn’t want to go small. Not that any of the characters are small, but Bobby’s death affects every single character’s story in a way that really no other character death would.”
The ABC drama threw Us for a loop when Krause’s Bobby was secretly infected with a rare and fatal virus,which led to Krause’s exit from the series after eight seasons.
Peter Krause and Angela Bassett Disney/Christopher Willard
“I’ve heard that many fans are upset by this loss and they have a right to be. It is a loss. That said, it was more than a bold creative choice on a bold show. Bobby Nash was written in sacrifice and he was built for this,” Krause, 59, shared in a statement at the time. “First responders risk their lives on the job so that others can see another day. His story arc honors them. We at 9-1-1 salute all the incredible men and women who do these dangerous jobs and strive to keep us safe.”
Krause elaborated on saying goodbye to the show during an interview with Good Morning America, adding, “He was willing to sacrifice himself so that others could see another day. And I will miss everybody dearly. This was my workplace, for eight years, eight seasons.”
According to Minear, there was always a plan to kill off a major character.
Peter Krause said goodbye to 9-1-1 with his character Bobby Nash’s shocking death, but fans of the long-running series still have questions about what went down — and what is coming next. The second half of the ABC series’ epic two-part “Contagion” event, which aired on Thursday, April 17, saw Chimney (Kenneth Choi) continuing to […]
“I had been toying with the idea for a couple of seasons, actually, maybe even longer, feeling like at some point I’m going to have to do this,” he told Deadline in April. “And then once I came up with this idea for the lab leak episode, that’s when it solidified for me that it was time to do it, it felt like a real opportunity to give somebody an epic Wrath of Khan–like death.”
Minear called Bobby’s death — and Krause’s exit — a “wrenching decision.”
“I adore Peter, and he’s so great on the show, really the backbone of the show in so many ways, which is why it was both a terrifying decision but also, creatively, I just knew that it would be so meaningful and have such repercussions and give me so much story for the show,” he said. “Once I had made that choice, suddenly the world of the show seems so much more real to me, just feeling the grief of the characters and feeling just how that nuclear bomb going off in the center of that universe affected everything. Suddenly, everything just felt weirdly more alive to me.”
9-1-1 airs on ABC Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET
