Look, we’ll admit we have mixed feelings about the upcoming Season 9 of 9-1-1. First, because part of us is still holding on to our denial about Bobby Nash. What do you mean he’s dead? No, he’s in a lab somewhere being experimented on. We refuse to believe otherwise. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Second, because even though the news that the show has promoted Corinne Massiah and Elijah M. Cooper to series regulars for Season 9 has made us genuinely happy, that also comes with some misgivings. We wanted more of May and Harry. We have always wanted more of May and Harry. We just didn’t want more of them at the expense of Bobby! We wanted to see more of their relationship with Bobby and Athena, as well as to see them navigate early adulthood, not just to have them back so they can help their mom deal with their grief.
Then there’s the fact that the show has promoted the two of them, but has not promoted Anirudh Pisharody, who plays Ravi, even though Bobby’s “death” (river in Egypt!) leaves a very big gap at the 118. The obvious way to fill it at this point would be for Chimney to become Captain, Eddie to step into Chimney’s paramedic spot, and Ravi to pair up with Buck. If so, that means we should be seeing much more of Ravi in Season 9, right? Right? Then… why isn’t he being upped?
Of course, the obvious answer is budgetary reasons. Athena, outside of Bobby, has no other non-emergency storylines, so they had to bring in her kids. Everyone else at the 118 does. Chimney has Maddie. Buck has Maddie, too, and Eddie. Eddie has Buck and Christopher. Hen has Karen and her kids. Ravi would require an entire outside storyline to be established, and that requires time the show would rather spend on the already existing series regulars and on the two characters it just promoted to series regulars. Not to mention the show isn’t even good at giving time to the series regulars it has now, God forbid it adds three more.
I get it, I do! I just don’t have to like it.
Ravi has been around for a long time at this point. So many of his backstory are things that have already been casually mentioned, like the fact that he had cancer as a child, or that he’s a landlord. It would be very easy to expand on it. It could be done during a call! A conversation in the firehouse. We don’t even need that much. We can tie it into someone else’s storyline, even.
At this point, it’s likely not going to happen, at least not now. And that’s disappointing. For Anirudh Pisharody. For Ravi. And even for the 118 in general. How the show will explain Ravi’s absence every once in a while remains to be seen. If they can even balance the show with Mary and Harry as regulars is something we will find out come Season 9. We’ll be watching… and waiting.
What do you think about the 9-1-1 Season 9 regulars? Would you have liked to see Ravi join May and Harry? Share with us in the comments below?
9-1-1 returns to ABC on October 9th.
