9-1-1's Peter Krause Loves the Show-Within-a-Show Hotshots As Much As You Do

[Warning: This story contains spoilers for 9-1-1, Season 8 Episode 3, "Final Approach." Read at your own risk!]

Peter Krause knows there is no other show like 9-1-1 on television. After cycling through nearly every major natural disaster in seven seasons, the ABC procedural drama has somehow managed to land (no pun intended) an epic Season 8 opening storyline involving a tornado of killer bees (otherwise known as a "bee-nado") that evolves into a potential air disaster.

In the season premiere of 9-1-1, Athena (Angela Bassett) was ordered to oversee the transport of Dennis Jenkins (Glenn Plummer) — the man responsible for killing her fiancé, Emmett, decades earlier — on a plane from Phoenix to Los Angeles. Much to Athena's dismay, Dennis had cut a deal for early release. At the end of the episode, Athena and Dennis' jetliner collided with a small plane that had become caught in a swarm of bees. With one of the pilots getting sucked out through a hole in the cockpit and another knocked unconscious due to the impact, Athena sprang into action. (Would we expect anything less?)

In Thursday's conclusion to the three-episode opening emergency, Athena, with the help of a young aviation enthusiast, was forced to crash-land her plane. But rather than attempting to land the plane on an airport runway, Athena realized that, due to a lack of fuel and the damage caused by the accident, she had no choice but to land the aircraft on a freeway. Yes, you read that right — a freeway.

Having failed to regain his job as fire captain of the 118, Athena's husband, Bobby (Krause), took a job as a consultant on a firefighter show called Hotshots, where he met an overzealous actor who wanted to study him. Bobby may no longer work for the LAFD in an official capacity, but he clearly missed the real-life action. So when Buck (Oliver Stark) tracked him down on the set of Hotshots to alert him about what happened to Athena, Bobby naturally jumped back into his leadership role, ordering Buck to clear a mile of the freeway for Athena to land her plane. Once Athena made that emergency landing, Bobby led an effort to evacuate all the passengers from the burning plane.

But the action did not stop there: Bobby tagged along on a runaway mission with Athena and Dennis, who were determined to find a certain black book hidden by one of Dennis' fellow inmates — a human trafficker — inside a car at an airport parking garage. That black book contained the names of powerful people who aided in the inmate's illegal activity — and, as it turned out, one of the federal agents who tasked Athena with delivering Dennis back to Los Angeles wanted to destroy that evidence. That agent even tried to shoot Bobby, but Dennis took a bullet for him. While Dennis recovered in the hospital, Athena told him that he had her blessing to take the early release, and urged him to honor Emmett by being a better man than he was before with his family.

While watching the playoff game between the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies in the background on Wednesday, Krause took a quick phone call with TV Guide to discuss the epic opening storyline and tease what lies ahead for Bobby and his (former) team at the 118.

You have the unique opportunity to play a show within a show in the new season of 9-1-1 — Bobby is a consultant on a firefighter series called Hotshots. When showrunner Tim Minear first pitched you his vision for this three-episode opening storyline, what was your reaction, and what did you make of the meta nature of this Hotshots storyline?

Peter Krause: I was very happy when Tim told me about it. I think that this show is at its best when there's a lot of comedy and there's a lot of action, so [Hotshots] provides a lot of comic relief on the show. I think the way that Tim weaved everything together this season — the "Bee-nado" and Athena being on the plane, and the small plane being covered in bees and causing damage to the larger aircraft that she's in, and then Bobby working on Hotshots and having to commandeer the Hotshots engine to shut down the freeway [for her to land] — Tim did a really good job with some really big storytelling pieces, and I think it's one of our best three-parters.

I was just talking about how this show has evolved so that each season we start with these larger, movie-like episodes, and I think that last season Tim decided he was going to take what was working and take it even further. So I'm very proud of these first three episodes. I think we're not doing what anybody else is doing on TV, I'll say that. We are landing planes on freeways that were taken down by a bee-nado, and the fire captain is off working as a consultant on a TV series and has to commandeer this shell of a fire engine with no real gear on it. I love it. It's really, really fun stuff. I just thought it was great.

And by the way, there's more coming from that world. The world of Hotshots will continue in ways that were unexpected to me, so credit to Tim for tossing up some surprises — and good ones at that.

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How long do you think Bobby is going to have to suffer the wrath that is Hollywood?

Krause: [Laughs.] Well, sometimes, in television, you have unintended success, and I think that the Hotshots storyline has a lot of potential, and fans have really liked it, I think, more than anybody in the 9-1-1 world thought they would. So I think that it's going to have a life beyond just a few more episodes, but we'll see. I'm not sure exactly what Tim has planned, but we're all having such fun with it and audiences are really enjoying it, so I could see him extending it for a while. I think it's also just a really fun element to this series. 

You mentioned that you've been wanting to play more comedy this season. Has this storyline, as absurd as it might be, taught you anything new about Bobby? Have you found yourself playing a different side of the character, just by virtue of being thrown into a new environment?

Krause: Well, I guess in the way that you don't really know what you've got until it's taken away, Bobby's identity is so wrapped up in being a fire captain and being the leader of a team, and he's a different type of leader, certainly, than [Brian Thompson's] Gerrard is. So I think he's deeply missed by his team. It's sort of like, you break up a family, and of course, we see Bobby assume the role of leader very quickly in the aftermath of the plane landing when his team arrives and there's a fire aboard the aircraft. It's just his nature [to take over as Captain], and they are a firefighting family. I think that that's something that's really appealing about the show. The Firehouse Five — Chimney, Buck, Hen, Eddie and Bobby — they truly are a team and they're separated right now. The Hotshots stuff is really fun, but I think that Bobby going away and having to be a consultant on a TV series really did show him how much he misses his work family and his position as a leader. 

One of the best scenes of this week's episode is the lead-up to Athena managing to land the plane on the freeway. Judging from the cut that I watched, you probably didn't have a plane to visualize in that scene until you were doing the wider shot, where Bobby literally comes face-to-face with the nose of the plane.

Krause: Yeah.

What do you think is going through Bobby's mind as he watches Athena's plane descend in front of him?

Krause: I think he was confident that it was going to work. I think that was the only play for me, playing Bobby in that moment — he's not afraid that he was going to get run over by a plane, [and] he's going to do everything he can to ensure Athena's success landing the plane on a freeway in Los Angeles. We actually shut down a section of freeway — I won't disclose where, but downtown. I'm sure there were some angry motorists that night who had to take a confusing detour around the section that we closed off. [Laughs.] I can't believe some of the things we do on the show.

That's Hollywood for you. And I guess if your show has the budget to shut down a long stretch of the freeway in Los Angeles, you might as well do it.

Krause: Yeah, exactly.

One of the recurring themes from our past conversations is that, with each emergency they've endured, Bobby and Athena's relationship has gotten stronger and stronger. Now that Athena has gotten some closure with her late fiancée Emmett's killer, Dennis, what can you say lies ahead for her relationship with Bobby? Are there going to be any upcoming house-hunting shenanigans for Bobby and Athena?

Krause: Athena and Bobby certainly have evolved into a dynamic duo. They save people; they solve crimes. I enjoyed the comedic moments [last season] when we were back from the cruise and we were sitting on the sofa with the tour shop clothes, and we had that bag of burgers and fries. They realized they were alone in the house, and they made a beeline for the bedroom — oh, [that's] foreshadowing! And I think that given their dynamic duo status, we're going to see them involved in more emergencies this season. I think we're going to come back around to the house hunting. That hasn't been in these next scripts, but I think that's something that we'll reinvestigate down the road, but [the next few episodes have] been emergency heavy for sure, and there's a lot of good stuff in there. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about house-hunting shenanigans. 

Last season, we got a glimpse of Bobby's childhood and learned that his struggles with addiction actually run in his family and stem from his firefighter father's untimely death. Bobby seems to be much more forgiving with himself these days, in large part due to what happened to him last season. Have you spoken with Tim about any plans to bring back Bobby's surviving family members in the present day? Do you have any theories about what happened to his brother or his mother, who could still both be alive?

Krause: I don't know, and I don't know what exactly Tim would want to do with those characters. I'm assuming there'd be some sort of conflict stemming from the past because he hasn't had a lot of contact with them. And I'm wondering what that might be about if he wants to tell those stories — and he may not. Like I said, I certainly think this show works at its best when it's entertaining, when there's comedy, when there's action, but it hasn't kept us from dealing with some really deep issues, particularly with Bobby's addiction and the guilt over the fire he accidentally started.

And you mentioned forgiveness — that really came through Amir appearing in Bobby's life. I do think that certain things in life take a really long time to process, and given Bobby's situation, it would make sense that it takes him a really, really long time to forgive himself. I think that Amir aided in that, [as did] his relationship with Athena and his relationship with the whole fire team. But I do think that we reached a point in the series where we do need to move on from the weight of that guilt. It doesn't mean that things won't bother Bobby from time to time, but I do think that he has grown and he has let go, and you can let go into his current life a little bit more. Those are really deep issues you can only really do justice to in television. There's just not enough time space, I think, in film to tell a story like that. But man, is it fun to be doing this consultant gig on Hotshots and see the show firing on all cylinders and being funny. The action I think was just great in these first three episodes. And hey, a tornado of bees, where else are you going to see that?

9-1-1 is officially the longest-running show that you have ever been a part of. What have you made of the evolution of the show and your character in particular? How would you describe the relationship you have with Bobby now?

Krause: Every TV series I've done is a different animal production-wise. I certainly enjoy playing complicated characters, and Bobby certainly is complicated, but I do like it when Bobby is uncomplicated, when he's there to save people during an emergency or he's just shining his love on Athena. [I like it when] he isn't overburdened by his own guilt or a sense of responsibility to not make any mistakes. There's a sort of a perfectionist quality sometimes to Bobby that I think that over time he is letting go of.

But it's been a really fun process and I kind of look over my shoulder now. I can't believe that we've done this now for [this long]. We've been filming now for just over seven years. I believe we started early October of 2017. And it was funny. [On Tuesday], I can't remember who, but somebody in the van back from our firehouse set was saying how much they enjoyed Parenthood, and Aisha said, "... But not as much as our show, right, Pete?" [Laughs.]

We certainly have had one of the roughest schedules in TV, and to endure heat and cold, those long hours working early and working late, we truly have had each other the whole time. Like I said, with Angela, the dynamic duo of Athena and Bobby is their own team, and then collectively, we're all a team as well. I think that Ryan Murphy did a really nice job in the very beginning by creating this triangular storytelling machine of a 9-1-1 call center operator, a cop, and a firehouse, and it has been interesting [as an actor]. I can't imagine myself having done a procedural that was drawn completely inside the lines, and it's been great having Tim back because he's really good at drawing outside the lines. 

9-1-1 airs Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC, and episodes stream next day on Hulu.