Is 9-1-1 's Buck really dead? Oliver Stark previews the 'fever dream' to come
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9-1-1's Buck has been through a lot — but nothing ever like what's in store for him after Monday's season 6 winter premiere.
Struck by lightning in the final moment's of the episode, "In a Flash," the firefighter was rushed to the hospital without a pulse. And there's no question, "He is dead at the end of this episode," actor Oliver Stark tells EW.
But that doesn't mean we've seen the last of Stark on the Fox drama. The preview for next week (which aired at the end of Monday's episode) shows Buck placed in a medically induced coma where he'll live through an "alternate universe fever dream."
FOX Oliver Stark on '9-1-1'
"Buck is in a realm between life and death," Stark teases. "He gets to explore what life might be like had some big things in his life gone down differently, things that have really made him the person he is."
9-1-1 showrunner Kristen Reidel agrees that killing Buck (at least — fans can hope — temporarily) is an opportunity to explore the character deeper than ever before.
"All season long, Buck has been talking about wanting to understand himself better and wanting to find a way to be the person he wants to be, not the person other people want him to be," she says. "And when you're examining your life and looking to your future and trying to figure out your place in the world, nothing shakes you up quite as much as dying. This just felt like a way to really dig into some of Buck's issues, some of Buck's need to please and need to fix — and what would he be if he stopped trying to do that?"
FOX Oliver Stark on '9-1-1'
While all attention will turn to Buck for next week's episode, the winter premiere also saw major developments for the rest of the 118 as well. With so much happening, we asked Reidel to break down the rest of the episode's major moments.
Athena and May go undercover to help Bobby
"We wanted it to feel like they have been working on this all these months that we have not seen them," Reidel says of jumping right into Athena (Angela Bassett) and May (Corinne Massiah) undercover at the drug rehab center where Bobby's (Peter Krause) former sponsor, Wendall (Grey's Anatomy's Maurice Irvin), had been just prior to his death. "Bobby, May, and Athena have been investigating this place and trying to find out what happened to Wendall, and they've hit a dead end at every turn. This was the only move left. I think it was May's idea, to go in undercover. Now we just have to see what comes of it."
The Buckleys come to visit — and so does Chimney's dad
"You can bring the Buckleys back, but at this point, there's no giant family secret there. So what's the escalation to a visit from the Buckley family? It's to also have a visit from the Han family," Reidel says of welcoming Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Buck's parents (Dee Wallace and Gregory Harrison) back at the same time Chimney (Kenneth Choi) is surprised by his dad and stepmother paying a visit with his half-brother, Albert (John Harlan Kim). "We just loved the idea of seeing those families interact and meet for the first time. Maddie's never met Chimney's dad, and Chimney hasn't seen him in person in years — maybe even decades. It's fraught enough when two families meet each other for the first time when they're joined in some relationship, but these particular two families just felt like a little extra layer of crazy."
Hen's in the dark about her son spending time with his biological father
Hen (Aisha Hinds) and Karen (Tracie Thoms) are going to find out about Denny (Declan Pratt) striking up a relationship with Nathaniel (Troy Winbush) "soon. Not immediately, but soon," Reidel teases. "And the question becomes, 'How do you navigate this?' Because on one hand, they are rightfully so incredibly angry with Nathaniel when they find out. But at the end of the day, he is Denny's dad. And it's a very complicated, as friends and families are — a very complicated minefield to navigate. And so a big part of this will be them figuring out how to put their own feelings aside for what's best for Denny."
What else can we expect?
"A lot," Reidel says when asked what's to come after next week's Buck episode. "We've got a lot of different kinds of episodes in the back half of the season, and so I think it's a pretty fun ride. We will be seeing, at some point, the return of Ravi [played by Anirudh Pisharody], and we'll kind of talk a little bit about where he's been and what he's been doing. And then we have some big finale craziness coming."
9-1-1 airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.
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